Abbas halts payments for Israeli electricity to Gaza Strip

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Palestinian girl studies her lessons by a candlelight during power cut inside her family's house at Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, in this April 25, 2017 photo. (Reuters)

JERUSALEM: Israel says the Palestinian self-rule government in the West Bank informed it on Thursday that it will stop paying for the electricity Israel sells to the Gaza Strip as tensions between the territory’s Hamas rulers and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas intensify.
Abbas has threatened to exert financial pressure on political rival Hamas to cede control of Gaza, a territory it seized in 2007 from him in bloody street battles. Reconciliation attempts since then between rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza have failed.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank had no immediate comment.
Hamas official Ismail Radwan condemned the move by Abbas.
“It’s illogical that Gaza is besieged and deprived of electricity, water and basic needs for the sake of political prices,” he said.
Gaza has suffered through increasing hardship since the Hamas takeover, which triggered a border blockade by Israel and Egypt. Gazans have endured power cuts, with electricity now available for only six hours a day.