State-owned Israel Electric Corp (IEC) and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement on Monday to boost Israeli electrical supply to the occupied West Bank, even as Gaza endures daily blackouts in a Palestinian political dispute. Under the deal, a new electrical substation was inaugurated near the West Bank city of Jenin. Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz cut the red ribbon in a rare show of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, three years after peace talks collapsed. “This is definitely an encouraging historic moment in which we are inaugurating the first substation in the Palestinian Authority,” Steinitz said at the ceremony. The power boost for the West Bank coincides with an energy crisis in the Gaza Strip, where electricity flows only two to three hours a day and medical facilities and residents who can afford to buy fuel largely rely on generators.

Source: Egypt Independent July 10, 2017 12:33 UTC