Israel Electric Company to stop cutting power to Palestinian Authority in exchange for state’s promise to use NIS 300 million in Palestinian tax revenues to defray PA’s debt.
Israel also agrees to hook up Rawabi to the water grid.
This week, the IEC twice cut power to the northern West Bank for periods of up to an hour to protest the PA’s unpaid debt to the company, which totals some 1.9 billion shekels ($483 million).
Under the deal reached Thursday between the Prime Minister’s Office and the IEC, the electric company will receive 300 million shekels ($75.8 million) from the frozen PA tax revenues, equivalent to the Palestinian debt for the last three months – December, January and February.
In addition, a solution has been found to a crisis surrounding the new Palestinian city of Rawabi; the city has remained empty due to Energy and Water Resources Minister Silvan Shalom’s refusal to connect it to the water infrastructure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved a proposed compromise stipulating that both Rawabi and several neighborhoods in nearby settlements will be connected to the water system. The senior official stated that Israel had informed the Palestinian Authority of the decision.
Strange! I read somewhere else that the PA was refusing to connect Rawabi because it would in title other Jewish settlements to be connected as well and that, the PA rejected?
Where is the truth?
Good for the electric company. But what the hell is this???