A shipment of 450.000 liters of Israeli diesel purchased by the Palestinian Authority would be pumped to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing

A shipment of 450.000 liters of Israeli diesel purchased by the Palestinian Authority would be pumped to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Friday.

A Palestinian Authority border official, Nathmi Mhanna, told Maan news agency that President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, coordinated with Egypt before deciding to route the fuel which will be used to power the sole electricity plant. Gaza's lone power plant ran out of fuel for its generators, causing outages affecting nearly two-thirds of the area's population of 1.7 million.

This comes one year after Hamas ceased importing fuel from the Zionist entity.

The shipment is meant to provide temporary relief for the fuel shortage in the Gaza strip, which started after Egypt cut off all shipments of fuel to Gaza. Senior Hamas officials blamed the Egyptian intelligence services, indicating that they were behind cutting off fuel to Gaza, in order to force the Hamas government into an agreement with Fatah.

Hamas is opposed to giving Israel the opportunity to block supplies in times of tension and wants direct trade with Egypt.