GAZA, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The main power station that supplies Gaza City and other Gaza Strip areas completely stopped on Saturday night supplying electricity to the population due to fuel shortage, officials said.

    Israel on Thursday decided to tightened a closure that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip since mid June, when Islamic Hamas movement took control of the Gaza Strip. All crossings leading to the Gaza Strip had been closed down.

A Palestinian nurse looks after a premature newborn baby at the Shifa Hopsital in Gaza City, Jan. 20, 2008. Gaza's main power plant began shutting down on Sunday due to a fuel shortage caused by Israel's closure of the territory's borders in response to Palestinian rocket attacks. (Xinhua Photo/ Wissam Nassar)
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    Since Thursday, Israel has been barring fuels and basic food products from taking into the Gaza Strip, in retaliation to ongoing makeshift rockets attacks carried out by Gaza militants against Israel.

    Chief of Gaza Power Station Rafiq Maleiha told reporters that after the sole Gaza power station ran out of fuels, it had completely stopped supplying more than one third of the 1.5 million Palestinian population.

    "Israel had closed down the crossings and barred the entrance of fuels into the Gaza Strip since Thursday, therefore we had runout fuels and the power station had stopped supplying electricity to the people," said Maleiha.

    The power station that located in southern Gaza City had been destroyed by Israeli jets on June 28, 2006, two days after three militant groups seized Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit. Four months later, with the help of Egypt, the power station had been rebuilt and re-operated.

    Gaza City and the southern refugee camps of al-Bureij and Nuseirat have been left in complete darkness after the power plant stopped supplying electricity on Saturday night.

    "We don't know what will happen next. There has to be a solution," said one of the residents, adding that "if there is no electricity, there will be no water coming up to upper floors in high buildings."

A Palestinian boy receives treatment at the Shifa Hopsital in Gaza City, Jan. 20, 2008. Gaza's main power plant began shutting down on Sunday due to a fuel shortage caused by Israel's closure of the territory's borders in response to Palestinian rocket attacks.(Xinhua Photo/ Wissam Nassar)
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