Middle East News

Israel resumes fuel shipments to Gaza

May 12, 2008, 11:10 GMT

Gaza - Israel resumed fuel shipments to the Gaza Strip Monday, after suspending deliveries for around a week, Palestinian officials said. Four tankers carrying industrial diesel were seen entering the salient on their way to the Strip's only power station which shut down Saturday due to a shortage of fuel. Palestinian Petroleum Agency Director Mujahed Salama said Israel has begun piping fuel into the storage tankers on the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal on the borders between the Strip and Israel. 'About one million litres of industrial diesel will be channelled to the power plant, in addition to 30 tons of cooking gas and 100,000 litres of vehicle diesel,' he told reporters. He said that by the end of the week the power plant should receive the 2 million litres of diesel fuel needed to keep running for one more week. The shutdown of the power plant caused a 35 per cent electricity shortfall in the Strip. The Gaza power station supplies around one third of the enclave's electricity. Sixty per cent comes via lines from the Israeli power plant in Ashkelon, about 15 kilometres north of the salient, and the remainder is supplied by Egypt. Israel had decided to limit the amounts of fuel into the Gaza Strip following an increase of homemade rockets attacks carried out by Gaza militant groups on Israeli towns and communities in southern Israel. Israel also closed Nahal Oz on April 9, after Palestinian militants attacked the terminal, killing two Israeli civilians. Israeli officials have also accused Hamas, which administers the Gaza Strip, of deliberately causing an 'artificial' crisis by refusing to remove the fuel stored on the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz terminal. Hamas controls the distribution of the reduced shipments; it accumulates the fuel and then allows the gas service stations to provide for the transportation.

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