Israel on Sunday said it will restore full electricity supply to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip following a request by the Palestinian Authority, which pledged to resume payments.
Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas withdrew his guarantee to pay Israel for power in April, leaving Gaza's 2 million residents with only three to four hours of electricity per day as supplies were cut by about half.
Israel supplies only 30% of Gaza's power needs, or some 125 megawatts, for which the PA has been paying 40 million shekels ($12 million) a month. In April, Abbas said the PA was only prepared to pay some NIS 20 million to NIS 25 million ($5.8 million to $7.3 million) a month for electricity to Gaza, marking a sharp decrease in the Strip's power supply.
Abbas' move, which affected schools, factories, hospitals and households, was part of an effort to pressure Hamas into loosening its hold on the enclave, a decade after the Islamist movement seized the territory from forces loyal to him
In a brief statement, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had ordered the power supply to resume "no later than tomorrow [Monday]," restoring an additional 50 megawatts of power to the coastal enclave.
Israel Electric Corp. reportedly began restoring power levels to Gaza on Monday morning, coordinating the move with the Defense Ministry.
Meanwhile Sunday, the parents of Givati Brigade Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and whose remains are being held by Hamas, blasted Israel's decision, describing the restoration of power as "foolish."
Using Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai's Facebook page, Leah Goldin, Hadar's mother, appealed to the residents of Gaza, writing, "The humanitarian issue is not one-sided, and the bodies of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, currently held in the Gaza Strip, are clearly a humanitarian issue."
"Israel will not act hastily and it will not approve the [supply of] 100 megawatts of electricity before the Israeli humanitarian issue of the return of the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, and the return of the Israeli citizens held in Gaza, will be discussed," she wrote further.
Apart from Shaul's and Goldin's bodies, Hamas is also holding captive Ethiopian Israeli Avera Mengistu and Bedouin Hisham al-Sayed, both Israeli citizens believed to be suffering from mental illness. A fifth Israeli, Jumaa Abu Ghanima, crossed the border into Gaza in 2016, and his fate remains unknown.
The abduction of soldiers' remains is "unacceptable," Goldin continued. "Every mother wants to be able to visit her son's grave. Holding bodies is a crime in the eyes of Islam. The cynical use of bodies [for political gain] contradicts the human conscience. Do not be held hostage by Hamas, a terrorist organization. Humanitarian gestures must be reciprocal."
The Goldin family further criticized the government for granting the Palestinians' request to restore the power supply to Gaza before any progress has been made on the captives' issue.
"The Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the cabinet ministers, has once again capitulated to Hamas by failing to condition the power supply to Gaza on the return of the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul," the family said in a statement. "It is a folly that the State of Israel, time and again, abandons the soldiers it sent into battle."
The resumption of power comes at a time of heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Palestinians have been mounting protests in the West Bank and violence has flared along the Israel-Gaza border since U.S. President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
