GAZA, June 7 (KUNA) -- The first shipment of Qatar-donated fuel entered Gaza Strip Thursday evening through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Head of the coordination committee with the cross authority Raed Fatouh said that several trucks carrying about 151,000 liters of Qatari fuel had been allowed into the besieged Strip.
He added that the Israeli authorities agreed to open the crossing, exceptionally, on Friday to allow the entry of the second shipment of Qatari fuel weighing more 200,000 liters.
Fatouh revealed that talks are carrying out to allow the entry of more shipments in the coming days.
Qatar has donated 25,000 tons of fuel to Gaza sole power station last April after repeated closure over fuel shortage. Egypt also donated today 20,000 tons of fuel to Gaza after it's the power plant shut down Wednesday for the same reason.
For his part, Spokesman of the deposed Hamas government Taher Al-Nunu expressed gratitude for Qatari leadership and people.
He voiced appreciations to the Egyptian supportive stance and role in easing the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
The densely-populated Strip is experiencing a major electricity crisis because of a shortage of fuel for the power plant, which supplies nearly a third of Gaza's electricity.
Gaza has long suffered outages because of shortages at its power plant, which has a maximum capacity of 140 megawatts but for some years has been able to generate only around half of that when operational.
In recent months, the situation has worsened because of a shortage of fuel, most of which is smuggled through cross-border tunnels from Egypt.(end) mzt.ibi KUNA 072235 Jun 12NNNN