By bombing the plant, the Israelis cut power to 65 percent of the Gaza Strip, a region that is one of the most impoverished in the Middle East. By destroying the plant, the Israelis also decimated one of Palestine’s most valuable companies, the Palestine Electric Company, whose shares are traded on the Palestine Stock Exchange. Further, the Israelis have destroyed any chance for industry in Gaza to grow.
It is axiomatic among the world’s economies: as electricity consumption increase, so does wealth. Gazans are impoverished, in large part, because they don’t have enough electricity. Residents in Gaza consume just 654 kilowatt hours of electricity per year or about one-tenth of what Israelis consume. The average Israeli consumes about 6,183 kilowatt hours of power per year, a rate that places Israel 27th among the world’s countries in terms of power use. By comparison the residents of Gaza rank number 136 among the world’s countries in per capita power use, a status that places them behind residents of Peru.
Not to mention, of course, the costs to businesses, students, traders, etc. Incidentally, kudos to Egypt for pledging to give Gaza free electricity.
Also check out MERIP’s new online piece, Gaza in the Vise, for a detailed look at the humanitarian impact of Israel’s war, especially on children.
Issander, I read a post for you earlier today on the Arabist titled “Thank you, Hizbollah” in which you blamed them for proving stupid by kidnapping the soldiers. Now I can’t find the post! Are you reconsidering their stupidity or something wrong with the blog database?
Nora
Gaza faces alot more challanges then just “lack of power” as far as growth goes.
While I agree that the destruction of the plat was wrong, and applaud Egypt for wanting to construct underground power cables to Gaza to prevent this from happning so easily in the future, as long as their is constant war in the area industry will not flurish. The power needs to be there for the people, but anyone who thinks solid industry will thrive in Gaza is truly seeing the region behind smoked glasses.
With out fail, some group will open a weapons plant, or store weapons in a textile plant, and countries will start firing at it, and 1/2 the industry will be destroyed each time this happens.