GAZA STRIP, May 12 -- Palestinian students study their school lessons at their home as they light candles during power cut in Gaza City here, Tuesday. --fotoBERNAMA (2011) COPYRIGHT RESERVED *** Local Caption *** (Bernama)-- The crisis of power outage badly affects the life of Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Hovering between light and dark, most of them spend one third or more of each day without power supply. The narrow enclave which has a population of about 1.5 million squeezed into an area of about 400 sq km, is provided with electricity from three sources, but they are still insufficient to satisfy the strip needs. It receives 17 MW from its neighboring country- Egypt, 120 MW from Israel-their occupied territories- and they generate 64 MW from the Gaza main power plant. According to officials in the Gaza main power plant, the plant does not receive enough amounts of fuel so it works only on 2 generation units which produce 64 MW. The third unit is rarely run due to the shortages in the industrial fuel which is transferred from Israel. The main plant was built in 2002 and it could supply Gaza with 140 MW. As a reaction for any military escalation, Israel suspends transferring the fuel and the generators are switched off. The costal territories need at least 60 MW besides the amounts provided from the three sources. In 2006, Israel warplanes completely destroyed Gaza main power plant in the central Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants carried out a raid on an Israeli army site and captured the Israel soldier Jilad Shalit.

photographed by: Saleh Jadallah