Why Must Gaza Wait in the Dark?
A Gaza generation has never known a time that didn't require candles to be able to study after dark. (Supplied)
By Sam Bahour
When I asked my colleague
in Gaza about her biggest dream, her answer made an impression on me:
"I dream of what life would be like with 24-hour electricity." This was
the answer of a single, mid-career, western educated, professional
woman who lives in the more affluent part of Gaza City. Her response
suggests the depth of despair among Palestinians throughout Gaza.
Day-to-day life in Gaza
between Israeli attacks is unworthy news for Western mainstream media.
As a result, few people are aware that electricity in Gaza is a luxury,
with blackouts lasting 16-18 hours-every day. This bitter reality has
warped people's lives for years now, as they must plan their daily
activities around the 4-6 hours when they anticipate electricity, even
if that means waking up to put laundry in the washing machine in the
middle of the night.
Contrary to common belief,
the severe undersupply of electricity in Gaza is not new, and not a
result of the latest military aggression. Gaza has not had
uninterrupted electricity since the establishment of the Palestinian
Authority in 1994. In an attempt to compensate for the Israeli
disruption of Gaza's power supply, the Palestinians established their first power generation plant
in 2004. Ever since, Israel has regularly limited the supply of
electricity and industrial fuel needed to operate this only power plant
in
Gaza. Israel's ability to deny families in Gaza the energy they need
is nothing less than collective punishment of Palestinians-punishment
whereby an entire community is made to pay for the acts of a few.
Separating Gaza's
electricity supply from the political conflict is a step long overdue.
Access to electricity-a basic necessity that much of the world,
including Israeli citizens can take for granted-should not be
conditional upon outcomes of future negotiations. Continued darkness in
Gaza serves no one.
During Israel's military
aggression on Gaza this past summer, Israel again bombed the sole power
plant in Gaza. (Israel bombed the same plant on June 28, 2006.) In a
July 29, 2014 article about the latest destruction, the Guardian quoted Amnesty International which stated, "the crippling of the power station amounted to collective punishment of Palestinians."
Amnesty went on to note that,
"the strike on the plant will worsen already severe problems with
Gaza's water supply, sewage treatment and power supplies to medical
facilities."
On September 14, 2014,
less than 50 days after the Israeli strike on the plant and less than a
month after the cessation of fighting, the Middle East Monitor
reported that the CEO of the Gaza Electricity Company, Walid Sayel,
announced that Gaza's power plant was ready to work, pending fuel
supply. "The Turkish minister of energy," the item continued, "had said
that his country is ready to send a
floating 100 megawatt power plant to Gaza after obtaining the
necessary permits [from Israel]." As Palestinians in Gaza try to move
on, none of the players involved in the latest debacle, foremost among
them Israel, is being held accountable.
The barrier is not simply
being without fuel for the power plant. The issue is much more complex
and calculated. If Turkey were serious about helping, their floating
power station would already be in Gaza's territorial waters even if
they had to face down the Israeli navy and risk an international
incident to bring electricity to Gaza. If the Palestinian Authority
were serious, we would not have to witness the CEO of a Palestinian
power plant begging for the funds needed to get the power plant
running. And most importantly, Israel has the capacity to provide Gaza
with continuous electricity immediately. According to international
law, as the occupying power, Israel has sole responsibility to remedy
this issue immediately.
To the governments and
leaders who just returned to Cairo for another round of ceasefire
negotiations with no timeline or end in sight, I challenge them to
first focus on this basic and humane step: Give the people of Gaza
access to electricity. It would be a basic step in easing the stresses
of life in Gaza where loved ones can't check in with one another when
cell phones can't get charged, email and Skype calls are not
predictable, and having back-up generators for hospitals is literally a
matter of life and death.
As what was intended to be
a five-year peace process crawls into its third decade, an entire
generation of Palestinian children in Gaza who were born in the early
1990s are now turning 16, 18, 20 years old. Their generation has never
known a time that didn't require candles to be able to study after dark
due to intermittent electricity.
Israel has the capacity to
stop power interruptions today. Sympathetic nations have the influence
to insist that Israel does this. If international leadership cannot
agree that providing electricity to the people of Gaza - a very
achievable goal - should be an immediate priority, how can we possibly
imagine that the larger political issues can be resolved anytime soon?
- Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business consultant at aim.ps in Ramallah and serves as a policy adviser to Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. He was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio and blogs at ePalestine.com. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
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