Gaza's only power plant back online after two months following emergency fuel delivery from Egypt

The only electricity plant serving the two million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip has partly resumed operations after an unexpected diesel delivery from neighbouring Egypt.

Tankers brought one million litres (220,000 gallons) of fuel into the coastal enclave on Thursday, allowing engineers to partly restart the plant and ease the area’s chronic electricity shortage for the next few days.

Hamas, the militant organisation which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, had been using Qatari and Turkish funding to buy diesel to run the plant from Israel - but has repeatedly accused the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority (PA), which coordinates delivery, of driving up prices through unfair taxation.

It announced it could no longer afford the PA’s levy in April, leaving schools, hospitals and businesses unable to operate fully with just four hours of power a day.

Since the water supply to most households relies on electric pumps, many people have also had difficulty washing, showering, cooking and doing laundry.

The PA’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, has been waging a long term effort to weaken Hamas by gradually strangling its access to electricity.

Israel was still covering around one third of Gaza’s power needs, but in the last few days the flow had been cut by 40 per cent at Mr Abbas’ request, the AP reported.

When criticised over the decision, which impacted Gaza's hospitals' ability to care for patients, Israel Electric director Yiftah Ron-Tal responded, "It's our job."

The PA also threatened punitive measures if Hamas accepted the Egyptian delivery, said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official.

Mr Abbas’s office has not commented on the successful shipment, which Hamas pushed through with a court order. The delivery will make up for the recent cut in Israeli-supplied electricity - but only for the next three and a half days, the duration of the Eid-al-Fitr festival celebrating the end of Ramadan.

Egypt, too, has been trying to isolate and weaken Hamas, which it believes contributes to violence in the restive Sinai peninsula.

However, other factors appeared to play a role in Thursday’s decision, including Egyptian support for Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled Palestinian official with presidential ambitions. The former Gaza strongman bitterly fought against the Hamas takeover a decade ago. He subsequently became one of of Mr Abbas’ top aides before falling out with the president in 2010.

Earlier this month, Hamas leaders met with Mr Dahlan in Egypt, as part of a series of meditative talks, during which the exiled Palestinian persuaded Egypt to send the badly needed fuel in exchange for an enhanced political presence in Gaza.

The Associated Press contributed to this report