JERUSALEM -- Despite an Israeli cabinet decision that "water and electricity should be kept out of the conflict," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has still not agreed to lift a freeze of Palestinian funds to pay for the connection of a northern Gaza electrical substation to Israel‘s electrical grid.
Construction of this 161 KV [KV is the unit of measurement of electromotive force equal to 1,000 volts] Gaza substation was completed a year ago. The additional capacity would have been sorely needed, as demand is about to peak in the hot summer months.
The Israel Electric Company (IEC) is planning to build a high-voltage transmission line to this substation from Netivot, a city in southern Israel, not far from Sderot - which continues to come under attack from Palestinian Qassam rockets fired from Gaza - that will be able to supply at least 50 MW [MW is the unit of electrical power equal to 1 million watts] of electricity and, perhaps, more from Israel‘s electricity grid later on.
However, since the Gaza substation was constructed, damage has been caused by several recent Israeli tank incursions and airstrikes, and some $6 million worth of repairs and maintenance are now required.
Once such repairs begin, it will take about two months for the work to be completed, according to a report prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. However, the chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority (PEA), Omar Kittaneh, was a bit reluctant to confirm this timetable.
Nonetheless, the work cannot commence until Israel agrees to unblock frozen Palestinian money that will pay for such work.
In a recent interview at his Ramallah office, Kittaneh told the Middle East Times that he had written to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert four months ago, requesting the release of the money needed for the work to go ahead, but had yet to receive an answer.
Israeli national infrastructure minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer has also, to date, written two letters to Olmert - currently also Israel‘s acting minister of finance - one dating from early May, the other from the beginning of this month, recalling the government‘s commitment to keep all aspects of humanitarian aid out of the conflict, and pressing for the unfreezing of the funds.
A senior national infrastructure ministry official, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the Middle East Times this week that releasing the funds may, unfortunately, still take some time, even as he expressed hopes it would happen over the coming days.
The frozen funds in question are made up of Value Added Tax (VAT) and other tax monies collected by Israel on Palestinians‘ behalf, and that continue to accrue in a blocked account, administered by the Israeli ministry of finance.
The official indicated that it was the finance ministry that had to unblock the money for the repair of the Gaza plant, but "this is a political decision that the Israeli government has not [yet] made."
However, he confirmed that the Olmert administration was allowing payment to be charged against the frozen funds on a regular basis, to pay off the ongoing Palestinian bill for consumption of electricity provided via the IEC.
The IEC, which is still wholly government-owned, but which might be privatized by 2015, is now providing the major portion of electricity to the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, following the deliberate destruction of Gaza‘s main power plant by an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) airstrike June 28, 2006.
The strike was a reprisal attack for a raid by Palestinian fighters on Kerem Shalom, just across the border from Gaza, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, and a third, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was abducted and is still currently being held.
Gaza‘s power plant was built by Alston Power of Sweden over the period 1999 to 2000 at a cost of over $100 million. The Swedish government has funded the installation of some new transformers - though more are still needed - currently providing about half the pre-strike output.
Meanwhile, Kittaneh is planning to diversify the sources of electricity coming into Gaza, which, he said, would create a more stable system.
If his current plans are realized, there would be interconnectivity with Israel at the old existing line in northern Gaza, currently providing 120 MW of electricity out of the 187 MW total now available in Gaza, as well as at least 50 MW in the future, through the planned substation in northern Gaza, and additional capacity through a mobile substation that can be positioned in southeast Gaza‘s Sufa area, and able to have three of its 22 KV feeder lines linked to the IEC network.
A new line connecting Gaza to Egypt across Rafah has also begun operations recently, and is now providing some 17 MW of electricity. And, in a few months‘ time, a new connection is planned between Jericho in the West Bank, and Jordan.
The main Gaza power plant, meanwhile, continues to operate at less than half its capacity prior to last year‘s IDF airstrike.
The continuing refusal of the Israeli government to unblock Palestinian tax money is the stated cause for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas‘ cancellation of a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Olmert that had been scheduled for June 7.
The Israeli newspaper Ha‘aretz reported that Abbas had vowed Monday, in an unusual meeting in Ramallah with two Israeli Knesset members from the Mertz Party, to forego any appointment with Olmert until the frozen funds were released, but without mentioning Gaza‘s electrical needs.
"I will not meet with Olmert until he accepts my demand to lift the freeze on the Palestinian tax funds, in order to enable the bolstering of the security forces under my command, and to begin building a port in Gaza," Ha‘aretz quoted Abbas as saying.
However, there have been major problems concerning the latter project, as well.
The Israeli human rights organization HaMoked in its report, "One Big Prison," published following the unilateral Israeli "disengagement" from Gaza in 2005, stated that it took six years "of foot-dragging" from the start of the Oslo Accord process in September 1993, until September 1999, for Israel to consent to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to begin construction of a Gaza deep sea port and, even then, the port was not to be functional until there had been an agreement with Israel on a joint protocol regarding its operation.
Then, noted HaMoked: "in the summer of 2000, work began on constructing the infrastructure of the seaport on the coast of Gaza City. The costs were funded by the Donor States. However, in October [2000], the Israeli air force bombed the building site in response to an incident in Ramallah where a Palestinian mob killed two Israeli soldiers. Following this, the Donor States ceased funding the project. The work on the port stopped and has not recommenced."
Thereafter, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice famously stayed up all night to help broker a November 15, 2005 agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on movement and access to Gaza, which decided, among other things, that "construction of a seaport can commence."
According to a US state department statement, the agreement stipulated that "the [Israeli government] will undertake to assure donors that it will not interfere with operation of the port. The parties will establish a US-led tripartite committee to develop security and other relevant arrangements for the port prior to its opening. The third-party model to be used at Rafah will provide the basis for this work."
One great advantage of the project for Palestinians would be that, with Gaza having its own deep seaport, import and export activities would not have to pass through Israeli ports, with Israel collecting the customs and VAT revenue, which it can then punitively withhold at its pleasure.
A disadvantage might be the threatened Israeli abrogation of the 1994 Paris Protocol, which theoretically gives Palestinians some favored access to Israeli markets.
The Palestinian tax funds were most recently frozen after the March 2006 formation of a Palestinian government led by the Islamist movement Hamas, following its unexpected electoral success in January of the same year.
However, Israel has also withheld Palestinian revenues on previous occasions, even before Hamas‘ electoral victory, in punishment for the PA‘s failure to halt anti-Israeli attacks.