Hamas halts electricity protests, but anger remains

The 25-year-old nicknamed Guevara because of his admiration for the Latin American revolutionary had returned to his home in Gaza after days of hiding, but was not giving up.
He had avoided home after a warning that Hamas security forces were looking for him due to his role as an organiser of recent protests over severe electricity shortages.
In a mock army jacket and with a Che Guevara-like beard, Mohamed al-Taluli was being greeted by dozens of supporters from his neighbourhood of Jabalia, a crowded, overgrown refugee camp north of Gaza City.
“We are going to continue asking for our humanitarian demands,” he said while seated at a plastic table in a room in his home he called his office.
Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, has managed to end a recent series of protests over the electricity crisis with a security crackdown and foreign aid used to purchase more fuel.
But frustration in places like Jabalia remains, and there are once again warnings that deteriorating conditions in the Palestinian enclave of 2mn people may be leading to a larger eruption of anger.
Gazans face electricity shortages all year, but the problem is exacerbated in winter and mid-summer, when power usage spikes.
The Hamas authorities in the coastal enclave usually provide electricity in eight-hour intervals, but supply was reduced to four hours this month.
Protests began modestly, with dozens of people holding candles, before culminating on January 12 with thousands marching in Jabalia towards the electricity company.
Hamas security forces fired into the air to disperse the crowd, carried out arrests and hit an AFP photographer who required stitches to his face.
Further protests were prevented by a show of force by Hamas security.
On Monday, Hamas said it was returning to eight-hour electricity — and was releasing all those arrested in connection with the protests.
A Gaza government spokesman argued that Jabalia protesters were attacking security forces and public buildings, but also said that Hamas was responding to demands by working to improve electricity supply.
“There is no security solution,” Salama Maroof told AFP.
Che Guevara admirer Taluli felt safe enough to return home after the announcement that those arrested would be released, but for him and others, the electricity shortages are only one in a series of frustrations.
Many young people feel trapped between Hamas’s strict rule and Israel’s blockade of the enclave, which has been in place for about a decade and prevents them from leaving.
Egypt’s border with Gaza has also remained largely closed, and unemployment is around 42%.
Three wars since 2008 between Palestinian militants in Gaza and Israel have left behind death and destruction, not to mention psychological scars.
Even those with longtime businesses have suffered.
“I need electricity for more than eight hours to complete my work for the customers,” said 29-year-old Mohamed Abu Sharaf, whose family has had a print shop in Gaza City for 40 years. As he spoke, the electricity cut again.
The reasons for the electricity shortages are multi-layered, with the first simply a lack of capacity.
Gaza has one power plant that runs on diesel fuel and which has been previously bombed by Israel.
It also imports electricity from Israel and Egypt, but it is not nearly enough.
Ageing power lines and theft add to the problem, with Gaza losing up to 20% of electricity that makes its way onto the grid, Maroof said.
The recent shortages were complicated by a dispute with the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank and dominated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
Fatah and Hamas remain divided despite repeated attempts at reconciliation.
The Palestinian Authority handles fuel purchases from Israel since the Israeli authorities do not deal directly with Hamas, which they consider a terrorist organisation.
The PA then requires Hamas to reimburse it for bills and taxes, but Gaza’s electricity company faces cash shortages because many customers do not pay.
Maroof said the company should collect some $13mn per month, but only manages around $6mn.
He blamed it on poverty and simple reluctance to pay, while calling the PA’s taxes excessive.
Many Gaza residents are well aware of the complications, but have become fed up.
Those who know the situation well say Hamas must be seen as responding to their frustrations.
“This is for them a strong message that you can’t count on your stick or your gun to undermine the people and to silence the people,” Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas member and former government official, told AFP.

New plant seeks to head off Gaza water crisis
The largest desalination plant in the Gaza Strip partially opened yesterday with international help as the impoverished and blockaded Palestinian enclave seeks to prevent a water crisis.
The first phase of the plant opened in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and will provide around 75,000 people with safe water, Michael Kohler from the European Commission said.
The European Union has financed two phases of the project with two grants of 10mn euros ($10.6mn). The second phase will eventually leave the plant able to provide 12,000 cubic metres of safe drinking water per day.
That will be able to help a total of 150,000 people, said Robert Piper, United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
A 2012 UN report warned that over-extraction of groundwater from the Gaza Strip’s sole aquifer could cause irreversible damage by 2020.
“Today, 96% of (Gaza’s) water is unfit for human consumption,” Piper said.
More than 2mn people live in Gaza, largely sealed off by a decade-long Israeli blockade and closed Egyptian border.
Kohler said the plant would help but wider changes were needed to find a lasting solution.
“Fundamental change to the political, economic and security situation in Gaza” requires the borders being open, he said.
UN officials have repeatedly called for the blockade to be lifted to allow for improved humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.