The Palestinian Authority Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA) announced recently that it has gotten approval for a project to provide Gaza with 30 MW of power from solar energy.
The equipment is supposed to be in Gaza in the next three months, with 6 months to implement the project.
This would be a significant boost to Gaza's energy. The Gaza Power Plant has been providing about 60 megawatts and the israeli power lines another 120 MW and Egypt about 22 MW. Given that Gaza is not really the most crowded place on Earth, and in fact has lots of empty spaces not suitable for farming, this seems like a no-brainer.
In other Gaza news:
The number of trucks going through Kerem Shalom every day continues to increase. They have now been averaging 700-750 trucks approved (usually, about 100 or more don't show up after approval, because the Gaza buyers changed their minds.) (The linked Maan article implies that Israel closed the crossing during all of Passover, which isn't true - I believe it was only closed a single day from the holiday.)
Today, Israel is opening up the Kerem Shalom crossing - normally closed on Fridays - to pump more fuel into Gaza. There was a problem with the pipelines in Gaza that limited fuel to the power plant, causing blackouts, and that has now been fixed so this is meant to bring reserves back up.
According to Hamas' rival Fatah, Hamas started to impose a 5 shekel tax on every Gaza fisherman Thursday- and as a result no one went fishing.
(h/t Irene)
Al Jazeera reports that the Egyptian army blew up three mosques on Saturday night in Rafah.
The mosques were in the buffer zone that Egypt is building to curb illegal smuggling tunnels to Gaza. Clearly, the Egyptian government believed that Hamas would have no problem using mosques as entrances to the tunnels to smuggle weapons - in either direction.
What? You mean you didn't hear about the destruction of three mosques? Funny how that happens.
While Al Jazeera says that this caused a furor, I am not seeing anything about it in other media. Egypt has jailed some Al Jazeera journalists, and AJ is not a fan of the regime, so it likes to make it look bad.
Hebrew media is reporting that the Shin Bet has managed to catch a shipment of 40 diving suits to Gaza, hidden among a larger shipment of sportswear, earlier this month.
The shipment was discovered at the Nitzana border crossing between Egypt and Israel, which is used only for commercial goods.
Hamas terrorists used diving suits during Operation Protective Edge in attempts to attack Israel from sea.
Since Egypt has cracked down on smuggling tunnels, Hamas has tried harder to smuggle in goods through the normal daily imports of hundreds of truckloads of goods to Gaza from Israel.
Kikar Hashabbat lists a number of these attempts that were caught over the past four months, most of which have never been reported in English-language media as far as I know:
- 1200 tubes of polyurethane, used for the production of rocket propellants
- Rocket fuel hardener, also for propellants, hidden in paint cans
- 200 kg of crude sulfur rods used in weapons manufacture, hidden in a food shipment
- 18 tons of metallurgical coke used in furnaces to forge metal
Somehow, I missed this in the Twitter feeds of all those people who are saying that Israel should "end the blockade" to Gaza. Because smuggling in materials to kill Jews fit right in with their "human rights" agendas.
From Al Arabiya:
Iran’s president was missing from a cabinet meeting on Wednesday for the second consecutive time adding to speculation that the rift with the country’s supreme leader was widening on Wednesday, agencies reported.
The rift is over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s decision to dismiss Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi last week, a decision that was revoked by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mr. Moslehi was present on Tuesday at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, the body that regulates educational and cultural issues, and which he chairs, Agence-France Press reported.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s absence in that meeting was particularly noted, as he is known for never missing any opportunity to appear in the media and delivery fiery speeches, AFP said.
No reason was given for his absence by the state’s media.
Earlier on Saturday, in a speech that aired on state TV, Mr. Khamenei said he would intervene in government’s affairs “whenever necessary”—a rebuke to the president for challenging his all-encompassing authority.
The power struggle between the two leaders could be indicative of a serious political crisis in the making—especially ahead of legislative elections scheduled for March 2012. The presidential election will take place in 2013.
Analysts told The Associated Press that Mr. Ahmadinejad is looking to control the intelligence ministry in a bid to influence the next parliament as well as to determine the next president.
However, Mr. Khamenei is also seen as intent on helping shape a new political team, free of Ahmadinejad loyalists, to lead the next government.
It looks like the ayatollah is flexing his muscles to remind Mad Mahmoud exactly what "supreme leader" means.
UPDATE: After I wrote this, AP wrote this up about the topic:
A hard-line cleric warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday to end an escalating power struggle with Iran's supreme leader, calling it a religious obligation to do so and accusing the country's enemies of trying to sow rifts among its leadership.
The split threatens to destabilize Iran at a time of tension with the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program and appears to center on a battle for influence between the two men over next year's parliamentary election and a presidential election in 2013.
"Obedience to the supreme leader is a religious obligation as well as a legal obligation, without any doubt," said Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami. He did not mention Ahmadinejad by name, but it was clear he was referring to the president.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the final word on all matters of state in Iran, and hard-liners consider him above the law and answerable only to God.
As David G wrote in the comments, "'Obedience?!' What does he think Ahmadinejad is? A woman?"
This is Easter week, so the media is doing their annual stories about how Israel is supposedly restricting some Christians from coming to Jerusalem. (I showed the bias on a similar Reuters story last year.)
I received an interesting email from commenter Womble last Tuesday. Here's what he wrote:
I’ve just returned from a trip to the north of Israel, focused mostly on Christian holy places, and I’ve taken some photos.
This photo was taken in Nazareth this morning. It shows the banner which greets any Christian pilgrim or tourist who wants to visit the Christian places of worship in the city.
If you want to get to the Church of the Annunciation or to the Synagogue Church, there’s literally no way to get there without being confronted with this warning to embrace Islam or else. (The building on the right is the Church of the Annunciation; this way you can see the proximity). My guess is that it is the work of the local branch of the Islamic Movement, whose offices are located nearby.
However, I cannot identify the logo in the upper left corner of the banner, so I can’t be absolutely sure if it’s the Islamic Movement or some other, less known, organization doing it.
I think that Womble is right and this is the Islamic Movement of Nazareth:
Either way, here is a little seen side of how Muslims feel free to intimidate and bully Christians in the Middle East - and even in Israel.
It turns out that this is not the first time the Nazareth Islamists have done something like this. Here's a banner they erected before Christmas, 2008, also in front of the Church of the Annunciation:
More about that incident here.
This is a story you will not be seeing in the mainstream media.
Especially this week.
