Hamas Disperses Protesters as 1,000s Decry Gaza’s Deepening Energy Crisis

Palestinians chant slogans during a protest against the ongoing electricity crisis in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on January 12, 2017. © Mohammed Abed / AFP

It's curious that all the protesters seem to be young men.

A demonstration protesting electricity cuts in Gaza attended by several thousand people was broken up by Hamas before the crowd could reach the electric company. Gazans have had just a few hours of electricity a day for months, with blame laid all around.

The energy crisis hit the Gaza Strip late last year, worsening an already dire situation. Locals there were used to getting electricity in eight hour cycles, but they have now been reduced to just three or four hours. The cost of running generators has also soared, and few people could afford them even before the crisis worsened.

On Thursday, anger over power rationing escalated into a protest focused around the Jabaliya refugee camp. The chanting crowd threw stones at police, who fired into the air to disperse the protesters, according to Reuters. Ma’an news agency said security forces also targeted reporters covering the events. The crowd was prevented from reaching a power company, which they blamed for the crisis.

The clashes are the latest sign of growing popular discontent among Gazans, who number more than two million. They direct blame at all sides, including Israel, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which runs the Gaza strip – all of which play a role in providing electricity and the ongoing shortage.

Gaza has only received 45 percent of the power it requires over the past year and is currently receiving only a third of its daily demand of 450-500 MWs. A power plant in Nusairat generates only 30MW a day, both due to damage it sustained in Israeli bombings in 2006 and a shortage of fuel, which the Palestinian Authority provides. An additional 30MW come from Egypt and 120 MW are supplied by Israel.

The PA used to send the fuel it bought from Israel and Egypt to Gaza tax free, but stopped doing so due to its own financial troubles. This has angered Hamas, which has accused the rival faction of undermining the group’s authority in Gaza by exacerbating the crisis.

Moreover, Gaza’s electrical utility has been unable to collect payment from many of its customers, and is now owed around $1 billion in unpaid consumer bills. Meanwhile, the Israeli company is demanding that the Palestinian company pay the debt owed to it in full before it will increase supplies.

The crisis has worsened since temperatures began falling in winter, increasing demand for electricity. Poorer Gazans have had to switch to candles and firewood for lighting and heating, while those better off have started buying more diesel fuel for generators. This has caused a spike in demand and, consequently, prices that, in turn, has put many local businesses at risk of bankruptcy.

“We used to buy 1,500 liters of diesel week. Now we have to buy 4,000 liters at a cost of 20,000 shekels ($5,250) a week,” Haitham Badra, a bakery owner, told Reuters. “If the crisis continues much longer, all bakeries and restaurants in Gaza will collapse.”

Meanwhile, the power company in Gaza said: “If no substantial solutions are found the crisis will escalate and hours without power will increase.”

The Hamas Charter affirmed in 1988, that Hamas was founded to liberate Palestine, including modern-day Israel, from "Israeli occupation" and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Assistance has been suspended from many countries because Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, and because Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization. Hamas has targeted civilians in Israel and as such has been accused by Human Rights Watch of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Perhaps if Hamas were to make it a priority to better Palestinian's lives rather than destroying Israel, they might get some help. But how much of the assistance they do get actually goes to improving Palestinian lives and how much goes to building Qassam rockets and tunnels beneath Israel?

All's Quiet on the Climate Change Front as Death Toll Mounts in Frigid Weather

Would you believe this is in Istanbul, Turkey?

A girl walks under snow-covered trees during a snowfall in Istanbul, Turkey, January 7, 2017. 

© Osman Orsal / Reuters

One winter does not a cooling trend make although that didn't stop the climate change propaganda from issuing alarmist statements once or twice a month for the past year and a half. In that time we endured the second strongest El Nino ever recorded and any climatologist with any dignity would have refrained from taking advantage of that to generate hysteria in the masses. 

So, because 'fair is fair', I shall lower my self dignity to the level of taking advantage of La Nina, El Nino's ugly little sister. Ugly sister took over from her brother in the summer of 2016. El Nino started, technically, in about March 2015, but for all intents and purposes, actually started the previous fall, in 2014. Much of the northern hemisphere enjoyed warmer than normal temperatures for those two winters, then the wheels fell off.

Ugly sister prefers sleigh runners to wheels and much of North America and Europe has ground to a crawl because we don't make runners for cars, trucks or big airplanes. In N.A. skateboards have given way to snowboards on the streets of some cities; people in Vancouver have been seen skating down the streets. 

And this is not a very strong La Nina! In fact she is officially a 'weak' La Nina and NOAAs myriad computer models suggest she is almost dead already. But while she is expected to expire in the next month or two, she may, in fact, be only 'mostly dead'. A look at the right-hand side of the graph, below, shows most models with another down-turn next summer-fall. The ugly, little witch may return next winter.

That would be in keeping with what happened following the strongest El Nino ever which occurred in 1997-98. In the summer of '98 ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) switched over to La Nina which remained until late winter, early spring of 2001 - a run of 32 consecutive months.

Meanwhile, millions of people are cold and not wanting to hear the BS about global warming, and dozens of people have died in Europe from the cold. Snow and ice have been plugging up transportation corridors and downing power lines all the way to the Mediterranean. 

Europe is beginning to count the cost of the deadly cold snap sweeping across the continent, with the first deaths reported over the weekend

Social workers in Serbia have been trying to ease the living conditions of migrants living in makeshift shelters enduring the below-freezing temperatures. In the capital Belgrade, hundreds of people, mostly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, are staying in an abandoned customs warehouse, with local aid groups providing heaters, blankets, clothes and food. 

A man walks in the snow at around minus 26 degrees Celsius (minus 14.8 deg F)

in the village of Jezerc, Kosovo, January 8, 2017. © Hazir Reka

Many people there were sick, though, the aid groups said. “The next few days are critical, and for sure the health condition of these people is worsening,'' Stephane Moissaing, the MSF Head of Mission in Serbia, told AP.  

Snowfall in Blace, Central Serbia

The country's authorities has also banned river traffic due to ice blockages and strong winds, while emergency measures were announced in some municipalities in the south and southwest. Several villages were blocked by heavy snow, forcing the evacuation of about 100 people there.

A man walks in the centre of Warsaw January © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Two men died of the severe cold in Poland, with the total death toll from sub-zero temperatures reaching 55 since November, according to figures by Polish authorities, as cited by AP. In the country's southern, mountainous regions, temperatures dropped to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit).

A man removes snow from a car in a suburb of Sofia after heavy snowfall

on January 7, 2017. © Nikolay Doychinov / AFP

In neighboring Bulgaria, police reported the deaths of two men from Iraq, as well as a Somali woman, who succumbed from the cold in the mountains bordering Turkey. Security forces said that the three were apparently trying to reach Europe. Many villages have also been  left without electricity and water.

Braila, Romania

In Romania, a dozen or so of the country’s major roads remain closed because of heavy snow, and ferry services between Romania and Bulgaria across the Danube have been canceled. Authorities also announced schools would be closed on Monday and Tuesday in many areas, including the capital, Bucharest.

Waiting in line for holy water. Romanian tradition

Moving westward, where Italian authorities blamed the extreme weather for eight deaths, one of them a man who was found in the basement of an unused building in Milan, while another was found on a street in Florence near the Arno river.

Trees are covered with ice and snow on top of the Feldberg mountain, in Germany January 8, 2017.

© Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters

German Federal Police reported picking up 19 migrants – five of them children – at a highway stop in Bavaria, after their driver apparently ditched them, leaving the group stranded in the freezing cold. Elsewhere, across the country, firefighters reported 415 incidents of weather-related accidents over the weekend alone, AP reported.

Even in Turkey, snow has been falling for three days, with Turkish Airlines grounding hundreds of flights.

Vehicles wait for the greenlight of a traffic light during a snowfall in Istanbul, Turkey January 8, 2017.

© Murad Sezer / Reuters

However, it appears Muscovites didn't fear the cold, though, with hundreds joining an eight-kilometer bike parade in -27 degrees Celsius (minus 17 Fahrenheit).