Gaza’s power authority has said the blockaded enclave’s sole power plant will run out of fuel within hours, leaving the Palestinian territory without electricity after Israel cut off supplies in retaliation to the recent attacks by Hamas, the armed group that runs Gaza.
Palestinian Energy Authority Chairman Thafer Melhem told Voice of Palestine radio on Wednesday that the plant would shut down in the afternoon in Gaza, where about 2.3 million people live in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
“This threatens to plunge the Strip into complete darkness and make it impossible to continue providing all basic life services, all of which depend on electricity, and it will not be possible to operate them partially with generators in light of the prevention of fuel supplies from Rafah Gate,” said a statement issued by Gaza’s authorities on Wednesday.
“This catastrophic situation creates a humanitarian crisis for all residents of the Gaza Strip,” it said.
The statement referred to Israel’s retaliation “as the dirtiest crime of collective punishment against defenceless civilians in modern history”.
It called on the international community to move quickly to stop “this crime against humanity and this multi-form mass murder”.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said “the fuel stock to operate the generators in the Gaza Strip hospitals will end tomorrow, Thursday, which will exacerbate the disastrous conditions in the hospitals”.
All of Gaza’s crossings are closed, making it impossible to bring in fuel for the power plant or the generators on which residents and hospitals have long relied.
Israel won’t stop until Palestine is gone. That’s been the plan the whole time. Israel never wanted peace or a two-state solution, they just wanted the land at all costs - including hypocritically committing genocide by erasing a country and many of its inhabitants.
Seems like you’re suggesting it’s Israel’s fault a diplomatic solution couldn’t be reached. Interesting that this is in Hamas’ charter then, the party that Gaza elected to office and is responsible for the recent murder of hundreds of civilians:
The realpolitik of the matter is that Palestine went to war and lost a long time ago but refuses to acknowledge it. They have no viable path to military victory, yet they refuse to concede and refuse to negotiate for a viable peace. Many, like Hamas, instead openly call for genocide and as we have seen their forces indiscriminately murder, rape and kidnap civilians.
Either Palestine needs to come to the table willing to make some serious concessions, willing to enforce pacification of their more hostile elements, or there will not be a Palestine. Gaza will ebb away one destroyed building and one settlement at a time. They no longer can win on the battlefield or, thanks to Hamas, in the court of public opinion. They have no allies willing to help them. Their neighbors won’t even let refugees in due to what happened in Lebanon and Jordan.
If there is truly concern for the civilians in Gaza their leadership needs to embrace a viable path to peace. A good start would be returning the kidnapped and bringing the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity to justice.
None of those things will happen. Palestine will be annihilated. Conflict over.
Israel’s never honored any established boundary and takes every opportunity to further expand outside of their territory. Saying Palestine needs to negotiate with the Israeli government is the same as saying “Palestine needs to give up and not exist.” Hamas’s violent behavior and views have a lot to do with how the Palestinians have been treated over the decades and waving away Israel’s behavior that led to this is so short-sighted.
“We repeatedly tried invading and killing them and every time they defeated us and took our land, the monsters!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_of_Israel
Quite the opposite. Negotiation is the only viable way I see to secure peace and security for both parties. Refusing to negotiate with and continually attacking a superior military force is the shortest path to Palestine not existing, they only exist today because Israel has historically shown an incredible amount of restraint. Thanks to the mediaeval brutality Gaza employed they have lost most international goodwill and Israel has little reason to tolerate the constant murder of its people. They have a blank check right now to address the problem and they will use it to make sure they are never attacked like that again.
No doubt, but I have a hard time mustering any sympathy for those who behead babies, murder old women, rape civilians in front of their dead friends, kidnap civilians to be used as human shields, parade bloody bodies of their enemies through the streets, and murder hundreds of EDM kids at a festival celebrating peace. I don’t care how oppressed they’ve been, that is never acceptable. I was actually quite sympathetic to their cause in the past but after seeing that, Hamas and the Gazans that elected them have earned what’s coming next. It was pure barbarism. If they’d stuck to military and strategic targets, like Israel does, this wouldn’t be happening.