No truth to reports of power outages in areas of West Bank

Information circulating on social media reads: “Israel informs the Palestinian Authority of its intention to begin cutting off electricity to various areas of the West Bank beginning next week due to the PA’s accumulated debts to the Israeli Electric Corporation, estimated at half a billion shekels.” 

Kashif verified the information and found it to be fabricated. It contacted the head of the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority, Engineer Ayman Ismail, who denied the accuracy of the circulating information, stressing that “the Energy Authority has not received any official notification or threat from the Israeli company to cut off the electricity supply. He emphasized that this news is completely false and aims to unjustifiably raise concerns among citizens.”

Kashif also found that the circulated text was previously published verbatim by a group of social media accounts on 27 October 2021. 

Iran launched a missile attack on Monday morning, 23 June 2025, targeting several locations, three in the south and one in the north. The Israeli Electric Corporation announced that a strategic facility belonging to it in the south had been hit, and reported disruptions to electricity supply following the bombing.

The Palestinian Ministry of Finance had explained in a statement issued in January of this year that it had reached understandings to release a portion of the withheld Palestinian funds. The basic principles of the agreement stipulated that 767 million shekels of the funds deposited in Norway would be used to pay fuel costs to Israeli fuel companies, and a similar amount would be used to settle the arrears owed to the Israeli Electricity Company by Palestinian distribution companies. 

The statement indicated that the value of Israeli deductions from clearance revenues due to electricity debts accruing to distribution companies and local authorities until 2024 amounted to approximately 1.6 billion shekels, while the total annual deductions on electricity debts since 2012 amounted to approximately 12.5 billion shekels.