The Palestinian Ministry of Health warned yesterday of the risks of an Israeli electricity company intending to cut electricity to three governorates in the West Bank due to financial debts.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said in a statement that "Israel's separation of electricity threatens the lives of patients and will affect medicines and vaccines stored in refrigerators."
The power cut will harm patients and their medicines, as well as its impact on the validity of food that needs refrigerators, medicines and vaccines stored in refrigerators in health centers and health care clinics.
The Palestinian minister blamed Israel for "full responsibility for the lives of Palestinian patients and any complications that may occur to them," calling on international institutions and the international community to intervene to "stop this collective punishment."
According to Israeli media, the Israeli Electricity Company decided with the approval of the Israeli government to cut electricity to three Palestinian governorates: Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem because of the accumulation of debts owed to them by the Jerusalem Electricity Company (a private company that is the main provider of the three governorates).
The company's move is based on a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court a few days ago, which allowed to cut off power to the three governorates in light of the accumulation of debt and reaching more than 1.7 billion Israeli shekels.
This coincides with the arrival of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to New York City to participate in the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, according to the Palestinian Presidency.
According to the official Palestinian news agency (Wafa) that Abbas arrived in New York from Norway, where he was on a three-day official visit, during which he met with senior officials.
Palestinian officials announced that Abbas will address the General Assembly next Thursday, while he will hold meetings with heads of state and government and various international figures on the sidelines of meetings of the United Nations.
This year's UN General Assembly meeting comes at a critical time for the Palestinians following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge to annex large parts of the West Bank.
It also comes as relations between the Palestinian Authority and the US administration continue to worsen since President Donald Trump announced the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital at the end of 2017.
Meanwhile, Israeli President Ruby Rivlin met with US envoy Jason Greenblatt and discussed the chances of forming the new Israeli government.
"During Rivlin's meeting with Greenblatt, we discussed the files of the region, as well as the various opportunities to form a government, which is the urgent issue currently under way for President Rivlin," Israeli websites said.
In the meantime, the Israeli president is in critical discussions with political parties to find out their recommendations on who should be charged with forming the next government, after a legislative election that saw a close convergence of results between Benjamin Netanyahu and former chief of staff Benny Gantz, and put the outgoing prime minister in a political impasse.
The Israeli president holds separate meetings with all political parties represented in parliament to hear their recommendations on the choice of the next prime minister.
Whatever the choice, it is not certain that the person in charge will succeed in forming a government coalition, and several calls have been made for a national unity government to overcome this impasse.
Rivlin's consultations are expected to last until Monday and will be broadcast live by the Israeli president's office.
Rivlin's meetings with each party were arranged in order of the number of votes he received.
The first consultations were held with Benny Gantz's center-right White Blue coalition, which came first in Tuesday's election with 33 of the 120 seats in parliament, and then with Netanyahu's right-wing Likud, two seats behind White.
Rivlin listens to the recommendations of the Arab Joint List, which became the third force in the Israeli parliament after winning 13 seats, and the party of former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman «Yisrael Beiteinu», which won eight seats.
The Israeli president will not be forced to choose the politician who will receive the majority of the recommendations for forming a coalition government, but he must choose who he thinks he has a better chance of accomplishing.
Speculation has been made that the president could meet both Netanyahu and Gantz and ask them to look for options to form a unity government.
But Netanyahu admitted last week after the disappointing election results that he was unable to form a right-wing coalition and called on Gantz to join him to form a unity government.
The centrist coalition leader had repeatedly called for a unity government, but after Netanyahu's call he made clear his position, saying he should be prime minister because his party was the largest.
The standoff raised the prospect of a third election within a year.
Rivlin's chief of staff, Harel Toby, told Israeli Army Radio yesterday that the president "will participate and will do his best to prevent a third round of elections." "The consultations will include new presentations that the public has not yet heard of."
• Critical talks in Israel on the character of the next prime minister .. And Greenblatt meets Rivlin.