Chairman of the Palestinian Energy and Power Resources Authority, Thafer Melhem, condemned the Israeli government today for “blackmailing” the Palestinians by threatening to reduce power supply to several of the West Bank districts.
Last week, the Palestinian-owned Jerusalem District Electricity Company (JDECO) said it received a third warning from the Israeli Electricity Company (IEC) informing it that it will start rationing or cutting electricity supply to some of the company’s concession areas on the 22nd of this month from 10 am to 12 noon local time in the cities and districts of Ramallah and Bethlehem, and on the 23rd from 12 noon until 2:00 p.m. on parts of Ramallah and Jericho and their area villages.
Melhem told Voice of Palestine that such an Israeli move aims at pressuring the Palestinian government to sign a costly agreement, which would also ban the government from running a national power supplier in Area C of the occupied West Bank, under complete Israeli control.
He described the Israeli move as a collective punishment against the entire population of the targeted areas.
