Palestine May Yet Use Israeli Gas To Restore Electricity In Gaza Strip - Economy Minister

Umer Jamshaid Published November 21, 2019 | 08:51 PM

Palestine is not ruling out the possibility of using Israeli natural gas to operate the Gaza power plant and provide electricity to residents of the enclave since the situation around the future use of the Gaza Marine offshore gas field may take a while to resolve, Palestinian Minister of National Economy Khaled al-Osaily told Sputnik on Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2019) Palestine is not ruling out the possibility of using Israeli natural gas to operate the Gaza power plant and provide electricity to residents of the enclave since the situation around the future use of the Gaza Marine offshore gas field may take a while to resolve, Palestinian Minister of National Economy Khaled al-Osaily told Sputnik on Thursday.

Earlier in November, reports emerged that the Palestinian authorities had approved a long-delayed proposal to use Israeli natural gas and funding from Qatar to operate the power plant.

While the minister said that Palestine could start using gas from Gaza Marine, he speculated this would not happen soon since the development of the gas field remained stalled due to political differences between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

"Maybe we will temporarily start to get our gas from Gaza Marine, maybe we can use [Israeli gas] because you know that electricity without gas is an ill-using business.

I don't think we will use it [Israeli gas] but if the [usage] of Palestinian gas takes a long time ... so it could be [that we will use Israeli gas]," al-Osaily said.

According to al-Osaily, no final decision on the matter has been made so far, but some discussions are being held with Israel through Qatar.

The Gaza power plant started operating in 2002, though its manufacturing capacity is not enough to fulfill the enclave's electricity needs. Israeli forces bombed the plant after Israeli serviceman Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas militants. Though the plant was rebuilt, reports have said that power is supplied only during eight irregular hours per day.