Gaza siege: Years of darkness

When Alyan, who had lived in the north of Gaza, decided to move south to escape Israel’s relentless military aggression, he was hoping that the bombing would be less intense and allow him some reprieve. But like many aspects of the dire humanitarian situation over the last month and a half in Gaza, they are shared among all Palestinians living under siege and Israeli aggression. 

Being in the south, Alyan hoped he would at least be able to charge his phone, so that he could communicate with his family. But this is not an easy task. He has to go daily to a hospital, shelter center, or one of the houses that have solar panels to find electricity to charge his phone.

The power outages have been an additional systematic hurdle to the daily life in Gaza and to the possibility of long term development. For 17 years, Israel and Egypt have besieged Gaza, and in the best cases, the residents of the strip get eight hours of electricity daily. During peak hours in the summer or during rounds of Israeli aggression, the provision of electricity would shrink to two hours a day. Now, nearly 2.3 million people have been living in near-total darkness since October 7.

Less than two days after the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declared a "complete siege" of the strip, Gaza lost 90 percent of its electricity supply, according to United Nations data, based on satellite images.

The Occupation has insisted on preventing the entry of fuel to the strip, despite international appeals that it be allowed in to meet the critical need for gas, which hospitals, bakeries, public water facilities, and communication networks rely on.

The daily fuel needs of the strip — excluding demand by filling stations for vehicles — for health, water, and power generation sectors, amount to 650,000 liters, Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority head Dhafer Melhem told Mada Masr. On the 40th day of the aggression on Gaza, the Occupation allowed 23,000 liters to enter, which it conditioned on being used only to supply fuel to United Nations vehicles.

The Occupation primarily controls the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip, with the Palestinian National Authority and Egypt playing a more minor role. The three parties are partners in various ways in providing electricity and, at the same time, in cutting it off.

The electricity needs of the Gaza Strip amount to an average of 470 megawatts, sometimes reaching as high as 600 megawatts during peak hours. The strip receives less than half of this amount from three official sources: 120 megawatts from the Israel Electric Corporation, 65 megawatts from the only power station in the strip, and approximately 30 megawatts from an electrical interconnection project with Egypt.

The Israeli power transmission lines

Israel runs 10 power transmission lines to the northernmost and eastern half of the strip, making them the easiest and fastest means for the Occupation to punish the population by cutting off electricity immediately. This happened at the beginning of the current aggression. The power lines have also been directly and continuously targeted by Israel in recent years, with 50 percent of them being destroyed following the 2008 war. 

Electricity from Israel is nominally paid for by the Palestinian National Authority, with the payment being deducted from the tax revenue that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority.  

In addition to the Occupation's pressure on the electricity supply to the strip, disputes between the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas government in the strip have led the former to stop paying the electricity dues under various pretexts, as happened in 2017 when Israel announced the suspension of electricity supply following the Palestinian National Authority's notification that it would stop paying the electricity dues. The Palestinian National Authority did not officially comment on its notification. 

With the worsening electricity crisis over the past six years, due to the widening gap between available electricity and Gaza’s needs, government parties rushed to negotiate linking the strip to an additional power transmission line from Israel called "Line 161." However, the implementation was not completed due to the Occupation’s hindrance and internal Palestinian divides. Some matters remained unresolved, such as who would bear the cost of purchasing the additional electricity, which was supposed to come in at 100 megawatts during the first stage of its implementation and gradually increase in more advanced stages, with Qatar only agreeing to fund the costs of constructing the line.

The power plant in Gaza

The power plant, located in the southern part of the Gaza governorate, serves as the second source of electricity. The plant was inaugurated in 2002 and was supposed to go through four construction phases, which, in the end, would bring its production capacity to 560 megawatts. However, the construction of the plant was halted in its first phase due to the Occupation’s intransigence and the beginning of the siege on the strip. As a result, and until before the Israeli aggression following the October 7 Hamas operation, the plant’s maximum capacity stood at only 120 megawatts.

And even then, there are many complications that prevent the station from operating at full capacity. Under the best conditions, it produces 70 megawatts per day. The Occupation’s intransigence has taken many forms over the years. 

First, during the 2006 war, the Occupation bombed all the turbines of the station. The repair of the damages continued for a year and a half.

Then, at the beginning of the siege on Gaza, Israel reduced the quantities of industrial diesel it supplied to the station by a quarter, a measure approved by the Israeli Supreme Court, claiming that the government is committed to "minimum requirements for humanitarian needs.”

In addition to the bombing and the shortage of industrial diesel, the siege imposed by the Occupation on the strip’s import of goods under the pretense of banning "dual-use goods,” prevents the entry of necessary spare parts for periodic maintenance resulting from wear and tear.

As a result of the irregular operation pattern of the station due to fuel supply interruptions, the depreciation and damages rates have increased, and the cost of producing electricity from the station is three times higher compared to the same unit purchased from an Israeli controlled electricity station. The Palestine Electric Company, which is a joint-stock company, owns the station, and, according to the agreement concluded between the station's owning company and the Palestinian National Authority, the role of the company is limited to production, while the PA is responsible for purchasing the necessary industrial diesel for electricity generation exclusively from the Israeli company Dor Alon Energy, at a cost of US$10 million monthly.

Israel and the Palestinian National Authority also impose exorbitant taxes that exceed 100 percent on the fuel sold to the station, which raises the cost of electricity production. Due to financial challenges, the station has periodically stopped importing fuel, sometimes forcing it to operate with only one turbine.

On some occasions, Egypt has intervened to supply the strip with fuel shipments, while Qatar funded the purchase of this fuel until April 2019, to increase the station's productivity. It also negotiated and pledged to finance a gas pipeline from Israel to the station to thereby make it run on natural gas instead of industrial diesel.

Electrical Interconnection with Egypt

Egypt also provides electricity to Gaza. Three lines extend from the Egyptian city of Rafah to the Palestinian side, providing between 20-28 megawatts, which feed the Rafah governorate and parts of Khan Younis. The electrical interconnection project started in 2006 with 5 megawatts and gradually increased in the following years.

By 2012, the supplies became irregular due to political and technical reasons, and, since 2017, the frequency of outages has increased until supply was completely cut off in February 2018, Melhim and former Egyptian Petroleum Minister Osama Kamal told Mada Masr.

Melhim says that the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority has sent appeals to the Egyptian side to reactivate the Egyptian link with the strip in order to supply electricity to shelters in the south. However, the Egyptian power lines have remained non-operational.

During nearly two decades of the suffocating siege on the strip, the gap between the strip’s energy needs and the diminishing sources of electricity has widened. While the occupation restricts the entry of fuel, the production of the power station declined, and the Egyptian lines stopped operating, the population of Gaza increased from 1.4 million at the beginning of the siege to 2.3 million now.

Searching for secondary energy sources

Palestinians in Gaza have tried to find ways to cope with the energy cuts and the darkness they are engulfed in for up to 20 hours daily. Some of these methods were primitive, such as small generators and candles to light homes and streets, which resulted in accidents causing about 65 deaths and injuries between 2010 and 2018.

Large electricity generators found a way to thrive in Gaza. Initially, their use was limited to supplying commercial markets and institutions, but later they expanded to service 60,000 commercial and residential subscribers, especially hospitals and water supply facilities.

Gaza also expanded the import of electricity generators, with around 350 generators operated by the Generator Owners Association within the strip producing 20 megawatts. Each generator supplies between 100-300 subscribers.

Generators provide a temporary and fragile solution to the electricity crisis for several reasons. First of all, the high prices of generated electricity, as one kilowatt sells for $1 compared to 13 cents in the official tariff, while 80 percent of the strip’s population lives below the poverty line.

On the other hand, generators cause air and noise pollution due to burnt fuel and loud operating noise. They also rely on deteriorating distribution networks to transmit electricity to subscribers, increasing their damage and sometimes causing accidents.

At the same time, generators have not been immune to the Occupation’s control, with restrictions on their import causing a significant decline in recent years. Additionally, the Occupation imposed conditions on their entry, such as including GPS devices installed on the generators to track their locations. Furthermore, generators ultimately rely on 2 million liters of diesel per month, which comes from Israel. When the crossings are closed, generators become useless, as is currently the case.

Solar energy remains the last option for the people in Gaza, granting them a high degree of independence from Occupation control.

International development organizations have provided grants to fund the establishment of solar panel stations to supply public facilities, including 10 hospitals that have solar panels, as well as some industrial facilities and schools. Household use is limited due to the high costs of installation.

Solar energy in the strip provides about 20 megawatts, which is a limited quantity compared to Gaza’s needs. 

However, expanding the production of solar energy for electricity generation faces several problems. For example, the deteriorating transmission networks prevent the establishment of large stations and linking them to the grid to reach a larger sector of users. Occupation authorities also impose restrictions on importing panels and their installation supplies.

Gaza could have secured greater independence in terms of its energy needs if Occupation authorities had not hindered the Palestinian exploration of the natural gas field Gaza Marine, which was discovered in 1999 in the territorial waters off the coast of Gaza and falls within the territorial waters of the Palestinian National Authority. However, the Occupation has prevented the development of the field in every possible way for over 20 years, before negotiations began regarding the possibility of Egypt developing the field in 2023, with settlement expansions in the West Bank being one of the tradeoffs of the deal.