Gaza City: Israel will reduce electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip after funding cuts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, an Israeli minister said yesterday, worsening an already severe shortage in the Hamas-run enclave.
The move has raised fears of a new upsurge in violence, with Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza having fought three wars since 2008.
The security cabinet decided Sunday to reduce the daily amount supplied to Gaza by between 45 and 60 minutes, Israeli media reported.
Gazans currently receive only three or four hours of electricity a day, delivered from the territory's own power station and others in Israel and Egypt.
Residents who can afford it use generators to power their homes or businesses in the impoverished Palestinian enclave of some two million people.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the reduction was due to an ongoing row between Abbas and his rivals Hamas, but he did not detail the scope of the cuts.
Abbas recently decided to "significantly reduce" payments for Gazan electricity," he told army radio. "It would be illogical for Israel to pay part of the bill."
Abbas reportedly decided on the move in a further bid to pressure Hamas.
But the reduction has also sparked fears of fresh violence.
Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, when it seized it in a near civil war from Abbas's Fatah following a dispute over parliamentary elections won by the Islamist movement.
Abbas runs the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognised Palestinian leadership based in the occupied West Bank.
Multiple attempts at reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah have failed, but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has continued to pay Israel for some electricity delivered to Gaza.
PA official Tariq Reshmawi said for the past 10 years the authority has paid Israel $12.7m and Egypt $2m every month for providing power to the strip.
Hamas was responsible for deteriorating conditions in the coastal territory, he said.
"In order to resolve the crisis Hamas must respond to Mahmoud Abbas's offer to end the political divisions," he added.
Hamas said the cut was made on Abbas's orders and termed it "a catastrophe".
"This decision aggravates the situation and risks an explosion in the Gaza Strip," it said in a statement.
