In Gaza, electricity -- or lack thereof -- powers daily activities

Published: 2008-02-12

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The first question friends in the Gaza Strip ask each other when they meet these days is "Do you have electricity?" "Three days a week we have no electricity for eight hours straight, depending on the area," said Omar Shaban, project manager for the Gaza office of the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services. He said people no longer greet each other with "How are you?" "We are unable to organize anything. Productivity is low. People try to reorganize their lives according to the electricity," he told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview. More than two weeks after Israel cut the electricity supply to Gaza, plunging 40 percent of its residents into darkness for three days, "the situation has become much worse," Shaban said Feb. 11. "There is no petrol for cars, and people have to walk. Many people have stopped going out." Israel closed the border because Palestinian extremists were launching Qassam missiles into southern Israeli border towns.

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