Petrol stations in the occupied West Bank ran out of petrol after the Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian areas cut off supplies due to growing debt. The impoverished Gaza Strip was also feeling the crunch over the Palestinian Authority’s failure to pay 120 million shekels ($27 million) owed to Israel’s Dor Alon fuel company. Petrol station owners in the Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million Palestinians live, said supplies were likely to be depleted by the end of the day.A Palestinian official said President Mahmoud Abbas agreed yesterday to dip into investment funds to end the fuel crisis. Mujahed Salameh, head of the Palestinian Petroleum Agency, said Abbas would send a letter to Dor Alon, pledging payment of 132 million shekels ($29.8 million). “We expect the fuel crisis to be over soon,” Salameh said.
The money would come from the Palestine Investment Fund, the value of which has been estimated by Palestinian officials at close to $1 billion. Abbas took control of it after Hamas won a January parliamentary election. Salameh did not say how quickly the money could be paid. Dor Alon declined comment. Salameh said earlier that factories, bakeries and public transport might be forced to stop work unless fuel supplies resumed. Emergency service workers said they feared they would be unable to reach patients in rural areas.