Ma’an News Agency reports the Palestinian Authority has interfered in Hamas and Egypt’s fuel deliveries by blocking payments, “The ongoing electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip deepened on Saturday after fuel purchased from Egypt was reduced by between 33 and 50 percent, with Gaza’s power authority claiming the Palestinian Authority (PA) froze all bank transfers to Egypt that were paying for fuel used to operate the besieged coastal enclave’s sole power plant. Additionally, Egyptian power lines, which typically provide up to 28 megawatts of electricity to Gaza’s southern districts, were also damaged and have thus ceased to provide any power, according to a statement from the Gaza Electricity Distribution Corporation. The developments came amid reports that the Ramallah-based PA has been moving to block the growing alliance between Gaza’s de facto leaders Hamas and Egypt, particularly since fuel deliveries from Egypt that arrived in late June served to avert a full humanitarian collapse in Gaza, after Israel drastically reduced its fuel supplies at the request of the PA. “

For the moment, swimming in beaches in southern Israel is banned indefinitely after pollution from Gaza made it way north following an electricity crisis where the absence of power has shut down the Strip’s only sewage treatment plant. Haaretz reports, “Beaches in southern Israel were closed to swimmers on Wednesday due to pollution, after power shortages in nearby Gaza led a sewage treatment plant there to shut down. The electricity shortages in the Gaza Strip appear to have caused untreated sewage to flow just over the border into Israel’s Mediterranean waters. The Health Ministry banned swimming on the beaches at Zikim and Ashkelon National Park after sewage was detected in the water. Officials suspect that the pollution is sewage that was left untreated after the plant was shuttered due to severe electricity shortages in Gaza, and that it drifted north onto Israeli beaches. There is no forecast as to when the beaches will reopen.”

Palestinian political leadership has reacted with outrage over the detention of feminist, human rights activist, and Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Khalida Jarrar, detained by Israeli forces from her home in Ramallah during a predawn military raid on Sunday. In June 2016 she was released after being detained by Israel for 14 months.

Palestinian Authority has reportedly resumed issuing exit permits for critical patients to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment in Israel, after Israel denied responsibility for the deaths of three babies in the Gaza Strip, saying it never received applications to bring them to Israel for medical care.

Two babies born with life-threatening conditions died in Gaza this week after they didn’t receive permission from the Palestinian Authority to get medical treatment in Israel, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, according to Haaretz. Both babies had heart defects. One died Monday, the second Tuesday.

Israeli authorities have denied Khaled Gamri, a Palestinian teenager, an exit permit to travel from the besieged Gaza Strip to Jerusalem for medical treatment after the boy was shot and critically injured by Israeli forces at a protest last month, according to rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP).

Ron Kampeas reports for the JTA: “Haim Saban, a major donor to the Democratic Party, is backing a bill that would slash funding to the Palestinian Authority unless it stops payments to Palestinians jailed for attacks on Israelis. The participation of the Israeli-American entertainment mogul in the initiative of the lobbying affiliate of the Israeli-American Council is significant because Democrats until now have been reluctant to back the bill as it stands.”

A West Bank settlement is building a $100 million medical school and doubling the size of its campus. The forthcoming project will be named after casino mogul and settlement financier, Sheldon Adelson. Haaretz reports, “Ariel University is to double in size within the next five years, according to a plan now being promoted by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Ten or twelve new buildings are to be added for new faculties in research and teaching at the university, located in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, as well as a new medical school, to be named after U.S. billionaire businessman Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam. The subcommittee on funding of the Council for Higher Education in Israel recently approved the plan, which will also lead to a major increase in the student body from its current figure of 11,000. The funding subcommittee estimated the cost of the expansion at about 400 million shekels ($113 million). Funding is to come from the university’s state-funded budget, from its income from tuition and from donations.”

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports Israeli soldiers detained Baraa Kanan, 19, and abused him for seven hours, before dumping him on the side of the road at night to find his own way home. From Ma’an News Agency: “‘They didn’t let up. I was terrified that they were taking me to some lonely spot so that they could murder me and no one would find me.’ Kanan added that soldiers finally stopped, at which point one said to Kanan ‘You’re a big-time terrorist. I’m going to shoot you.’ Kanan said that he heard the soldier load his gun and felt the gun be placed on his head. ‘I was sure he was going to kill me,’ he said. Kanan said that the soldiers then beat him again, and ‘covered his legs with earth and then removed it.’ According to B’Tselem, he was also transferred to a tent and made to sit on the floor. The soldiers’ removed his blindfold and forced him to say ‘Muhammad is pig’ and ‘Muhammad is a dog’, and snipped off bits of his hair with scissors.”

The Israeli security cabinet has approved a 40 percent reduction in Israel’s electricity supply to the besieged Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority requested the cut. It is feuding with Gaza’s Hamas government.