Egyptian power lines to Gaza down

All Egyptian electricity lines feeding the southern Gaza Strip reportedly broke down yesterday evening, creating further shortages for the besieged Palestinian territory, which has already been suffering from severe electricity crises.

Before the latest failure in the Egyptian lines, Gaza’s electricity company had been struggling to provide residents with power, with recent damages temporarily reducing supplies to four hours a day.

The Egyptian lines provided the southern Gaza Strip with 23 megawatts of electricity, nearly 15 per cent of coastal enclave’s electricity supply.

Read: Electricity crisis leads Gaza hospitals to ‘reduce services’

The Gaza Strip’s sole power plant closed on 16 April after fuel supplied by Qatar and Turkey ran out.

The plant shutdown reduced power supply to residents to just six hours of electricity followed by 12-hour blackouts, compared to the typical schedule of eight consecutive hours of electricity followed by eight without.

Even at full capacity, Egyptian and Israeli electricity grids, together with Gaza’s sole power plant, fail to cover the Gaza Strip’s energy needs.

The power plant has not run at full capacity in years, with Israel’s crippling blockade severely limiting fuel imports into the coastal enclave.

The UN has warned that the Gaza Strip would become uninhabitable by 2020, pointing to the devastation of war and nearly a decade of Israel’s blockade.