No BBC reporting on latest power crisis in the Gaza Strip

The past few days have seen a number of demonstrations in the Gaza Strip over power shortages exacerbated by a technical fault which shut down the electricity supply from Egypt. The Times of Israel reports that residents have been suffering power outages for up to twenty hours at a time.

“Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in Rafah, Khan Yunis and in refugee camps in the central Strip, calling for a resolution to the energy crisis.

Gaza residents have been enduring electricity shortages for years, but the situation intensified last week when power lines from Egypt went down, with the Egyptians citing “technical problems.”

There is also a shortage in the supply of fuel for the lone power station in Gaza, due to a dispute between the Palestinian Authority administration in the West Bank and Gaza rulers Hamas.

On Monday, Gaza protesters burned pictures of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Activists from Abbas’s Fatah party have accused the Hamas military wing of provocation during the protests.

The Gaza Strip currently only produces some 28 percent of the electricity it consumes. Out of 212 megawatts used by Gazans, 60 are produced in the territory, 120 are produced in Israel and 32 in Egypt.”

There has been no BBC coverage of this latest power crisis or the demonstrations. As readers may recall, the BBC also showed no interest in reporting the shut down of the Gaza power plant in July of this year, despite the fact that the facility featured heavily in BBC reporting both during and after last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas.  

The BBC reporting on the subject of the Gaza Strip’s power supply has repeatedly misinformed audiences with regard to the source of the chronic crisis. For example in August 2014 Yolande Knell produced a report in which she inaccurately told viewers that:tankers Kerem Shalom

“Tight border restrictions limited fuel imports. Although power cuts were common in Gaza before, now they’re much worse.”

As recently as July 2015 the BBC News website promoted a filmed report on the topic of the Gaza power plant with a synopsis which inaccurately told audiences that:

“The blockade of Gaza has long made maintenance and importing parts very difficult. It also limits fuel imports.”

Perhaps then it is little wonder that a story which contradicts the BBC’s inaccurate, politicised narrative of a power shortage in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli-imposed limits on fuel imports (which do not in fact exist) is of no interest to the self-styled “standard-setter for international journalism”.

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