Palestine Today 02 28 2012

Gaza power plant goes offline due to fuel crises while in the West Bank Israeli troops arrested five civilians in morning invasions. These stories and more, coming up, stay tuned.

Palestinian officials told IMEMC on Tuesday that the lack of fuel cased the only Gaza power plant to go offline, second time in two weeks; blackouts could reach up to 13 hours day in some areas of the Gaza Strip. Ahammad Abu Al Amrien, the information officer of the Energy Authority in Gaza, told IMEMC that the Authorities in Gaza are waiting on Egypt to send in the need fuel into Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

Last week Cairo agreed to supply Gaza with all the needed fuel supply and increase the supply of electricity to Gaza. In normal situation Gaza need 310 Mega watt of electricity a day. But since the Israeli siege on Gaza that started on 2007, the Strip only gets 120 Mega watt which comes from Israeli and Egyptian power lines while 80 Mega watt come from the power plant.

Abu Al Amrien explained that now parts of Gaza will go dark for 13 hours day. Water filters and sanitation clarifiers will be effects by the electricity outrage along with local hospitals . Since the Israeli siege on Gaza became dependant on the fuel coming via the underground tunnels at the borders with Egypt.

The fuel crises increased in recent weeks when the Egyptian army increased its campaign targeting those tunnels. Today Egyptian security stopped 7,000 litters of fuel in route to Gaza via those underground tunnels.

In other news Israeli forces invaded on Tuesday morning Jenin refugee camp, in northern West Bank and arrested five civilians while in a separate incident settlers attacked the village of Halhul near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Local sources reported that an Israeli army force stormed Jenin refugee camp in the early morning hours and searched homes before arresting five civilians. Army invasions were also reported at Jenin city and nearby villages of Araba, Fahma and Qabatiya, but no arrests were made, local sources reported.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, a group of Israeli settlers stormed the
village of Halhul near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. The settlers clashed with local youth before Israeli soldiers removed the settlers and fired tear gas a local youth, no injuries or arrests were made.

That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Tuesday February 28th daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Join us again tomorrow for more reports and update or visit our website www.imemc.org. This has been brought to you by Husam Qassis and me, Ghassan Bannoura.