ShareCAIRO/GAZA: A Zionist entity air strike killed four Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, the territory’s civil emergency service said, as Arab mediators and the United States tried to hammer out differences between Hamas and the Zionist entity over a January 19 ceasefire agreement. The Zionist entity’s military said its air force attacked “terrorists who were engaged in a suspicious activity on the ground in central Gaza and posed a threat to the force.” The entity sent a delegation to the Qatari capital, Doha, for more ceasefire talks, and Hamas leaders ended a round of talks in Cairo earlier this week. But there has been no sign of a breakthrough to resolve the disputes that threaten a return to armed conflict.
On Tuesday, Hamas accused the entity of trying to cause famine in Gaza by continuing to suspend the entry of aid and by its decision to sever its last working line of electricity to the enclave, a move that impacted a water desalination and sewage treatment facility.
“We call on mediators to pressure the occupation to abide by its pledges and open the crossings immediately, to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid and end the policy of collective punishment pursued by the occupation authorities against our people,” it said in a statement.
The Zionist entity cut aid flows of food, medicine, and fuel imports earlier this month, a move it said was designed to pressure militant group Hamas in ceasefire talks. On Sunday, it announced an electricity cut, which aid groups say would deprive Gazans of clean water.
There is a risk that Gaza will experience another hunger crisis if the entity continues to block aid, the head of the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in Gaza said on Monday, warning the situation is quickly deteriorating. “I think the more we go ahead (with aid blockages), the more we will see the impact increasing on the population. And obviously, the risk ... is that we go back to situation we experienced months ago about deepening hunger in the Gaza Strip,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
For Gazan teacher Abdullah Mortaja, the entity’s decision to cut off electricity to the war-battered territory was “a joke”, having already lived with little power supply since war began more than 16 months ago. For many in the Palestinian territory where Zionist entity had imposed a “complete siege” at the start of the war in October 2023, living without electricity has become the norm. “What electricity do they want to cut?” said Mortaja, 40. “There is no electricity in Gaza”.
Of the nearly dozen high-voltage power lines cut at the start of the war — along with food and water supply — one was reconnected by the Zionist entity in November to restart Gaza’s main water desalination plant.
On Monday, employees at the facility in the central city of Deir el-Balah filled large tanks with water that had been treated before the cut-off, which brought the plant to a near-complete halt. Around 600,000 people — about a quarter of Gaza’s population — rely on the plant’s supply of drinking water, according to UN figures.
Solar panels, which together with fuel-powered generators have become key sources of electricity in Gaza, allow only for extremely limited activity at the desalination plant, said a UN source Instead, many people are now left to rely on brackish well water or the occasional supply of potable water from international humanitarian aid groups, added the source involved in work in the Gaza Strip.
One official from the Gaza Electricity Company, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Zionist entity attacks “destroyed 70 percent of the electricity distribution networks”. At night, the territory is plunged into almost total darkness.
In the relatively few buildings left standing, the odd window is illuminated by a small square of white LED light. The war has displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants and triggered widespread hunger, according to the UN, with hundreds of thousands living in tents as their homes were damaged or destroyed. “Cutting electricity will only worsen our suffering,” said Jihan Khalil, 35, who has taken shelter in a school building in Nuseirat refugee camp.
‘Went back to 50 years ago’
For 47-year-old Baha Al-Helou, living conditions were as if “we went back to 50 years ago”. “We sleep without electricity, wash our clothes by hand, cook with wood, and there is no gas for cooking,” he told AFP. “Now our lives depend on wood, fire and candles.”
From apartment blocks to hospitals, fuel-powered generators have been a common alternative for years in Gaza, where the electricity supply was precarious even before the war, in part due to a crippling Zionist-led blockade. The Zionist entity’s power supply to Gaza depended on payments from the Palestinian Authority — based in the occupied West bank, a separate territory, and dominated by political rivals of Hamas.
The Palestinian Authority had previously withheld funds as a means of exerting pressure on Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007. Carpenter Hani Ajour said he had little choice but to use a public generator in the street.
But that option is expensive, and he can only afford to plug in his machines for a few minutes a day. Some Gazans rely on solar panels, but these are less efficient and sell for around $2,000, a fortune in the impoverished territory. For the most destitute, street vendors offer to charge telephones on a multi-socket cable for a few Zionist shekels, the equivalent of several quarter dollars. — Agencies
