Turkey will fund a purchase of fuel to provide power for emergency services in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, including hospitals and idle sewage treatment plants, a UN official said on 28 November. Robert Turner, of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that provides assistance for Palestinian refugees, said Turkey had pledged $850,000 that should allow emergency services to operate over the coming four months. Turner said the donation was paid by Turkey to the Palestinian Authority, which in turn had already transferred $200,000 of it to UNRWA in Gaza. Turner said the fuel would not be enough to resolve the crisis at these critical service facilities but would help to “alleviate” it.
Egypt’s months-long crackdown on cross-border tunnels that used to bring fuel in cheaply has already knocked out Gaza’s only power plant, meaning nearly a month of daily 12-hour blackouts for the 1.8 million people in the tiny, densely populated Palestinian territory. A major sewage treatment plant that serves a neighbourhood of 120,000 people has stopped working and raw sewage is overflowing into the streets, municipal officials said. Other facilities were also threatened with shutdown, they said.