The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) warns against dire consequences of the ongoing electricity crisis on the status of human rights in the Gaza Strip. The ICHR expresses its rejection of the security approach to handling the electricity crisis, including summons served to a number of citizens who participated in protests against the crisis.

The ICHR has monitored the grave consequences of the deteriorating electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip, which has culminated in the reduction of power supply to just three hours a day. This situation constitutes a flagrant violation of economic and social rights. Suffering has increased due to the lack of heating in the extremely cold weather, particularly among the most vulnerable groups of children, the ill, the elderly and citizens living in caravans. Access to water has been increasingly difficult because electric water pumps have stopped working, especially affecting the residents of upper floors of residential buildings. Students are also suffering from inadequate lighting in classrooms. Students and their families are under more pressure because the electricity crisis coincides with final examinations both at schools and at universities. Additionally, pumping untreated wastewater into the Gaza sea has resulted in extensive environmental damage. The electricity crisis has adversely impacted an adequate standard of living and caused higher household spending on diesel and other energy alternatives to maintain access to lighting and heating. The power crisis has further constrained citizens’ income and financial capacity in the Gaza Strip, which registers the highest poverty and unemployment rates.

Psychological conditions have also declined because of the electricity crisis. Citizens have experienced additional strain by the serious deterioration of the electricity crisis over the past ten years. Obligations have been either missing or denied as parties to the internal Palestinian political divide are holding each another responsible for the crisis. As a result, citizens have grown impatient. Community activists and institutions have organised demonstrations and assemblies to express their anger at the deteriorating and chronic electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The ICHR has monitored the security approach to coping with the expression of public anger at the electricity crisis. The ICHR has documented 11 summons served by the Police General Investigations Department and Internal Security Agency to activists who participated or intended to participate in demonstrations against the crisis. These activists were detained for several hours and forced to sign pledges, stating that they would not participate in, or post news about, demonstrations on social media networks. This is a grave encroachment of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of opinion and expression enshrined in international human rights conventions and national legislation.

The ICHR observes the inability of responsible authorities in the Gaza Strip to fulfil the requirements of basic economic and social rights, including the right to health care, heating, lighting, education and clean drinking water. Still, the ICHR calls on these authorities to avoid undermining their obligations of protecting civil and political rights by violating of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and peaceful assembly through security summons, which restrict public rights and freedoms.