Gaza power plant in fuel crisis

FUEL CRISIS: Power cuts of eight to 16 hours a day are likely in the Gaza Strip if the sole plant in the territory is shut down. (AFP)

Officials warned on Tuesday that the sole power plant in the Gaza Strip would shut down within 30 hours if Israel does not resume fuel shipments to the isolated territory.

"The supply of fuel will only last another 30 hours, which means that we expect the power generating plant will stop on Wednesday night," Kanaan Obeid, vice president of Gaza's power authority, told a press conference.

He added reserves of industrial-grade fuel have dwindled to 400,000 litres (106,000 gallons) since Israel halted fuel deliveries after Palestinian militants attacked the territory's main fuel terminal on Thursday.

The Israeli army's coordinating office and the private Israeli company charged with supplying fuel to Gaza declined to comment on the matter.

Israel cut fuel supplies for Gaza's power plant by half and halted the supply of petrol and diesel after Palestinian militants attacked the Nahal Oz fuel terminal two weeks ago, killing two Israeli civilian employees.

It resumed shipments of fuel for the power plant a few days later, but froze them again last week after another attack killed three Israeli soldiers near the same terminal.

In the past two weeks Palestinian militants have attacked border crossings on five occasions in a bid to break a months-long embargo of the territory.

The Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement sent a request to Israel's attorney general warning that the cuts "violate the state's commitment to the Israeli supreme court to permit a minimum amount of fuel to enter Gaza."

The Israeli human rights group warned that with the power plant out, the impoverished territory would face power cuts of eight to 16 hours a day.

The plant provides around 30 percent of the territory's electricity, with most of the rest supplied from Israel and a small amount from Egypt.

Israel slapped a punishing blockade on Gaza after the Islamist Hamas movement, which refuses to recognise the Jewish state, seized control of the territory in June.

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