A spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, Yusuf al-Mahmud, says in a statement posted Wednesday to the PA’s official news site Wafa that Israel was wrong to shirk responsibility for Gaza’s electricity crisis.

“The simplification of [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s] portrayal [of the crisis] as an internal dispute over the payment of the electric bill does not absolve the Netanyahu government from responsibility,” he says.

“The reason behind [the crisis]…is the existence of the Israeli occupation and the siege [of Gaza] that has afflicted the Gaza Strip for ten years. Furthermore, the disastrous occurrence of the disastrous [Hamas] coup would not have happened were it not for the existence of the occupation, the siege, and the dismemberment of Palestinian lands.”

Israel’s current blockade on Gaza, meant to prevent weapons from getting into Hamas’s hands, was put in place after Hamas violently took control of the Strip from the PA 10 years ago.

“The coup and the [Palestinian] divide are a pure [Israeli] benefit,” Mahmoud says.

“Netanyahu’s government insists on continuing the occupation, refuses to bring peace, and hastens to obstruct any opportunity to revive the [peace] process. It is the political situation that is driving the internal Palestinian situation to deteriorate further,” he adds.

— Dov Lieber