On 10 January 2008, defense officials announced that the quota on industrial diesel fuel allowed to enter the Gaza Strip would be returned to the level prior to the sanctions that Israel imposed in October 2007 (the quota been reduced from 2.2 million liters a week to 1.7 million liters a week). However, in the State Attorney's Office's statement to the High Court of Justice, as part of a petition opposing the cutback indicated that the action was temporary and that the matter remains under review.
The industrial diesel fuel imported from Israel is used solely to operate the single power station in the Strip, which supplies about one-third of the Strip's electricity. The other two-thirds are supplied by Israel (59 percent) and Egypt (8 percent). As a result of the reduction in imported diesel fuel, production in the Gaza Electric Company fell by 35 percent and electricity supply in the Strip dropped 11 percent. Although the reduction in the import of the diesel fuel took effect in October, the drop in electricity production began only in January 2008, when the electric company's reserves of diesel fuel became depleted. Now that the sanction has been rescinded, production is expected to return to its earlier levels, though when is unclear given the damage caused to the power station during the period of reduced production.
Electricity supply in the Strip had not been regular even before October, but now it is cut off for protracted periods of time. According to OCHA [UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs], power supply in the central Gaza Strip is stopped about eight hours a day; in the northern part of the Strip, in Gaza City, and in the Khan Yunis area, about nine hours every two days the people are without electricity; and in the Rafah area, no electricity is provided approximately eight hours a week.
The power station supplies electricity to institutions that provide vital services to the residents, such as Shifa Hospital (the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip), the sewage treatment facility in Gaza City, and dozens of wells, sewage pumps, medical clinics, and schools. The hospitals have generators, but they are unable to produce the requisite amount of electricity, and the interruption in power supply causes a variety of malfunctions, inevitably harming the patients. The residents also suffer severe cutbacks in water supply. In Gaza City, for example, the residents do not have running water eight hours a day.
Following the decision to reduce the supply of electricity and fuel, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip joined by Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations, B'Tselem among them, petitioned the High Court of Justice against the government's October decision. The petitioners argued that the measures were liable to create extensive humanitarian harm, and even endanger human life. They further argued that Israel's intentional harm to civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is patently illegal, and that the action constitutes prohibited collective punishment. The state's action is especially wrongful given the Gazans' almost total dependence on Israel for electricity and fuel, a result of the thirty-eight years of Israel's direct control over of the Strip. This dependence has grown since June 2006, when Israel bombed the only power station in the Strip. Even though the power station has been rebuilt for the most part, Israel limits its output by restricting the amount of industrial diesel fuel allowed into the Strip, so that only two of the power station's three turbines can operate.
In an interim decision, given on 30 November, the High Court postponed its decision on the gradual reduction of electricity from Israel to the Strip and requested the State Attorney's Office to provide additional explanations and statistics regarding the reduction plan and its anticipated effects on the civilian population. On the other hand, the justices did not prevent reduction of fuel. As a result of the decision, electricity supply to Gazans actually fell more than the government had planned as part of the reduction of electricity provided by the Israel Electric Corporation.