Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    GAZA, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Israel on Monday resumed fuel shipments to Gaza Strip after about a week of halting, Palestinian officials said.

    Four tank trucks of industrial diesel were seen entering the Strip and going to the only power station there which was shut down on Saturday due to fuel shortage.

    Mujahed Salama, director of the Palestinian Petroleum Agency, said that Israel started to pipe fuel into Palestinian depots at Nahal Oz crossing in eastern Gaza city.

    "About one million liter of industrial diesel will be channeled to the power plant in addition to 30 tons of cooking gas and 100,000 liters of vehicle diesel," Salama told reporters.

    By the end of the week, the power station will receive its 2 million and 20,000 liter of diesel to keep running for the next week, Salama said.

    When the station was shut, it caused 35 percent shortage of electricity in Gaza Strip and 50 percent alone in Gaza city. The electricity returned to Gaza one hour before noon.

    The EU-funded industrial diesel of the power plant enters Gaza from time to time, unlike the gasoline and the vehicle diesel.

    In September last year, Israel began reducing fuel supplies to the coastal strip, three months after the Islamic Hamas movement took over the territory.

    Hamas controls the distribution of the reduced shipments; it accumulates the fuel and then allows the gas service stations to provide for the transportation.