UN-Truth

The Israelis can deliver when they want to — Gaza’s main power plant gets fuel

Posted on January 17th, 2008 by Marian Houk

After two days of worrying shortfalls which caused a cut in electrical output, Gaza’s main power plant received 12 shipments of fuel on Thursday, totaling 540,000 liters, despite continued firing and air strikes in the coastal strip.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, project manager at the plant, said that with this, the plant will boost its electrical output back up to 55 MW, starting Thursday night.

Normally, there are no shipments on Friday or Saturday, but Dr. Maliha said he has been told to expect an exceptional delivery of fuel to be made on Friday to bring up the quantity of fuel for this week to an average of 315,000 liters per day over seven days.

This will help alleviate some of the suffering in Gaza, where the minimum temperatures as recorded at the Gaza power plant fell to -1.3 degrees Centigrade on Monday, and -1.8 degrees centigrade on Tuesday.

However, it is still not enough. The Gaza power plant needs 360,000 liters of fuel per day to run two gas turbines continuously, to produce about 65 MW of electricity a day, as it was doing until 5 January, when all its useable reserves were depleted.

The plant used up its reserves while making up the daily shortfall after Phase I fuel cuts imposed by the Israeli military on 28 October.

The electricity demand in Gaza now is 240 MW per day. Israel normally provides 120 MW through direct feeds on 10 or 11 lines. And Egypt provides 17 MW on a feeder line from Rafah in the Sinai to the Rafah district in Gaza.

To bring a third turbine on line, a total of 450,000 to 500,000 liters per day are needed; with this, the plant could boost production to about 80 MW.

Dr. Maliha has already informed the Israeli High Court of Justice, in an affidavit he provided on 3 January, that the Gaza power plant also needs to build up its fuel reserve again, and what is needed for that, he said, are “1,800,000 liters of industrial diesel in order to have two meters of reserve”.

In the affidavit, Dr. Maliha told the court that “we desperately need more industrial diesel than is currently permitted to enter Gaza under the military’s reduction program. We urgently and immediately need the military to cancel the restrictions it has placed on the amount of industrial diesel that we can receive”.

Dr. Maliha’s affidavit was offered in support of a petition brought to the Israeli supreme court by a group of ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, in an effort to halt military-ordered cuts in fuel, and proposed electricity cuts, after the 19 September decision by the Israeli cabinet to declare the Gaza Strip an “enemy entity” or “hostile territory”.

The next court hearing in this case is scheduled for 3 February.