The Palestinian Authority owes the Israel Electric Corporation 400 million shekels ($128 million) in unpaid electric bills for Palestinian residents, Minister in the Finance Ministry Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beytenu) said late Monday in response to a query by MK Orit Strock (Religious Zionist Party).

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Amar said that Israel would not forgive the debt and added that he had instructed the Israel Tax Authority to "coordinate a framework with the PA that would allow the debt to be removed gradually from the tax money Israel transfers [to the Palestinians]."

The IEC produces most of the electricity consumed by the Arab residents of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. According to agreements between Israel and the PA, the PA is supposed to pay for its residents' electricity consumption.

Over the years, the Palestinians have amassed a massive debt for their electricity consumption, but the PA claims that it is unable to collect the money owed by residents who do not pay what they owe.

Israel has made a few attempts at plans to collect the PA's electricity debt. In 2017, a deal was reached that would allow Israel to deduct payments for the PA's outstanding electric debt from the tax money it collects on behalf of the PA.

In 2019, then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense and finance ministers Naftali Bennett and Moshe Kahlon approved what was defined as a "special loan" to the PA, which was earmarked to help it pay the debt.

Recently, Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej (Meretz) announced that Israel needed to "take action to stabilize the PA, at least economically, even at the level of writing off debts."

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Lebanon's two main power plants were forced to shut down after running out of fuel, the state electricity company said Saturday, leaving the small country with no government-produced power.

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Lebanon is grappling with a crippling energy crisis made worse by its dependency on fuel imports. Erratic power supplies have put hospitals and essential services in crisis mode. The Lebanese increasingly depend on private operators that also struggle to secure supplies amid an unprecedented crash of the national currency.

The shortage of diesel and fuel, along with an antiquated infrastructure, has worsened power cuts that have been a fixture for years. Blackouts that used to last for three to six hours could now leave entire areas with no more than two hours of state power a day.

On Saturday, the state electricity company said Zahrani power plant in the country's south was forced to shut down because of fuel shortage; the main plant in the north was shut down on Thursday.

Electricite De Liban said the shutdown reduces the total power supply to below 270 megawatts, which means a major drop in the stability of the grid. It said it would reach out to fuel facilities in the country's north and south to see if they can procure enough fuel to bring back power. It added that a new shipment of fuel from Iraq is expected next week.

But the company, responsible for most of the government's debts, is dependent on credit from the country's central bank, which is struggling with dwindling reserves.

The government has gradually raised prices of fuel and diesel as the central bank cut back on subsidizing dollars for imports, adding to the hardships in Lebanon, where about three quarters of the population has plunged into poverty over the last year.

With prices soaring and unemployment at a record high, many families have given up private generators and few hours of state power a day is all they get.

On Saturday, distributors of gas canisters used for cooking and heating stopped operating, saying subsidy cuts amid black-market currency fluctuations meant they were selling at a loss.

The energy sector has been a huge drain on state coffers for decades.

The electricity company has annual losses of up to $1.5 billion, and has cost the state more than $40 billion over the past decades. Energy sector reforms have been a key demand by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

To help alleviate the crisis, Lebanon has received fuel shipment from Iran via Syria. Iraq has also made a swap deal with the government that has helped Lebanon's state electricity company stay operational for days.

The new Lebanese government is also negotiating supplies of electricity from Jordan and natural gas from Egypt, also through Syria. But those deals are likely to take months.

Lebanon's Electricity Minister Walid Fayad told The Associated Press that said the new shutdowns leave his government in "crisis management for a couple of days." He said the government would turn to the military to get emergency fuel supplies from its stocks "while we await the fuel cargo from the Iraqi deal and swap."

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The IEC began daily, three-hour power cuts on Sunday, a spokeswoman said, adding that the company was "determined to collect the debt but disconnects the power in a reasonable and proportionate way."

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The cuts have led to afternoon power outages in Ramallah and Bethlehem, affecting an estimated 130,000 people, said Hisham Omari, who heads the Jerusalem District Electricity Company (JDECO).

"When you have no electricity, there is no life. You stop life, you stop work, you feel the winter cold, for three hours," added Omari.

Palestinians in Judea and Samaria are largely dependent on electricity supplied by Israel.

JDECO buys electricity from IEC and then sells it to customers in the West Bank.

JDECO does not have its own power stations and relies on Israel for 95% of its energy supply. It buys the remainder from neighboring Jordan.

Omari said the company was "trying to take a 150 million shekel ($43 million) loan from a Palestinian bank to help pay off the debt."

He added that the PA was negotiating with Israel to reschedule JDECO's debt payments and end the power cuts.

The Palestinians have tried to reduce what they call their dependence on Israel for energy, in part through state- and private sector-funded solar energy projects and plans to build their own power plants.

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Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz called the permit a "historic landmark" for Israel. He said it's the most significant economic cooperation project between the neighboring countries since they signed a peace deal in 1979.

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The European Union, seeking to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, has encouraged the formation of new delivery routes, including through the eastern Mediterranean. These routes could also curtail Iranian ambitions to use Syria as a gateway to the Mediterranean.

"The natural gas revolution turns us into an energy power and affords us not just huge income for the country but also a dramatic decrease in air pollution," Steinitz said. Israel is planning to wean itself off coal, thanks to the expected gas boon.

But Israel's focus on its newfound gas reserves over the past decade has faced stiff domestic criticism from environmental and social welfare activists. They say the government has been too generous toward the gas tycoons behind the exploration, and that the massive investment has steered resources away from focusing on renewable energy sources.

More recently, local activists have been urging Delek Drilling and its US partner, Noble Energy, to move a proposed shoreline treatment gas rig farther out to sea. The activists fear what they call the catastrophic consequences of spreading toxic water and air pollution toward their homes.

Delek, Noble, and the Israeli government insist that the most stringent safety measures have been put in place, and accuse their critics of waging an irresponsible scare campaign.

Aside from the economic benefits, the promise of gas appears to have helped Israel grow closer to Arab governments and other Mediterranean countries.

Israel signed a $15 billion deal last year to provide Egypt with 64 billion cubic meters of gas over a 10-year period that will help transform both into regional energy players.

In January, Egypt hosted its first-ever regional gas forum. The Israeli energy minister attended alongside several regional delegations, the first such visit by an Israeli cabinet member since Egypt's 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

Although past economic agreements with Israel have been controversial in Egypt, where support for the Palestinians runs high, relations have been steadily warming.

Israel already delivers small quantities of gas to the Palestinians and to Jordan, with whom Delek and Noble signed their first export agreement in 2016.

The Leviathan reservoir was discovered in 2010 some 125 kilometers (78 miles) off the Israeli coast, and together with the discovery of the smaller Tamar field, ushered in a wave of optimism for a country that used to take an almost perverse pride in thriving with very few natural resources.

The Zohr gas field – discovered off the coast of Egypt in 2015 – has been touted as the largest ever in the Mediterranean.

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