Against the backdrop of the intense heat on Saturday evening: The Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) carried out planned power outages on Friday due to a decrease in electricity reserves. This left tens of thousands of people - mainly in ultra-Orthodox communities - without power in the heart of the city, and they received no response from the company that supplies electricity to their homes.
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Many residents in Bnei Brak, Modi'in Ilit, Haredi neighborhoods in Kiryat Malachi, and more reported that there was no electricity in their homes - and that they were forced to eat Shabbat meals in the dark, in the intense heat. In Bnei Brak, the faults were not fixed despite the city's rabbis' instruction that the electricity company's staff could handle everything even on Shabbat.
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""I was in Bnei Brak on Shabbat Sheva Brachot for my nephew," says a Jerusalemite who spent Shabbat in the city of Torah and Hasidism. "They found us a large, beautiful, and clean apartment - for me and my two other sisters. We arrived happily and cheerfully from the pleasant Jerusalem and Karmiel to the hot, sticky Bnei Brak, and it turns out that there is also a planned break here. There is no electricity, no air conditioners. There is nothing. Sweet neighbors really came up with a brilliant idea: to run a cable from neighbors with a generator and turn on every air conditioner in every room, so that when the electricity comes back on, the air conditioners will turn on.
""We went out to pray and eat in the hall, thank God there was electricity there. We returned to the apartment at 1:30 - all the buildings in Bnei Brak are dark and a huge truck from the electricity company is trying to restore the electricity. There are no cries of 'Shabab'. Only families dripping with water and hoping for salvation. At 2:30 the electricity came back on. I have no idea how everyone managed until this hour without electricity, it really was a hallucination. No hotplate, no refrigerator, no nothing. But I'm very curious if they will also initiate it in Herzliya or Kfar Saba.".
In Petah Tikva, too, there were entire neighborhoods without electricity. "The heartache really hurts the most for people who were celebrating Shabbat, Sheva Brachot, and Bar Mitzvah. They invest so much and it's such a nightmare," says a resident of the city.
In the Modi'in Illit area, it was announced that following a fire in the Shilat intersection area, a transformer that supplies electricity to the area burned down, and that the fault will be repaired by 7:30 PM on Saturday evening.
Although power was restored to large parts of the city, there were quite a few streets that were without power all Shabbat. "On Hazon Ish Street, we were without power all Shabbat. It's a shame and a disgrace, an entire Shabbat without power with a three-month-old baby. Simply crazy!" said a city resident. "We spoke to the electricity company and they said they didn't know about the problem.".
Others complained: "We have a two-month-old baby," "I also have a 4-month-old and a few other little ones at home, it's truly a nightmare.".
Another resident said: "I'm from Rashba Street. I called, they said they didn't know at all that there was no electricity here on Shabbat because they didn't report it... It sounds strange and unbelievable that they didn't know." In another part of the city, a resident testified on Saturday: "On Masech Hochma Street, some didn't have it all Shabbat, I still don't.".
Due to particularly hot weather, fires broke out in several locations in the industrial area of Kiryat Malachi on Friday, posing a danger to businesses and a nearby gas station. As a result, on Shabbat night, about forty minutes after the lighting of candles, the power went out in all the new neighborhoods - Chabad Pass, Carmi Hanadiv, Hamachane - and thousands of city residents were forced to eat Shabbat without light and spend one of the hottest days of the year without air conditioning.
The electricity came back on intermittently, going up and down, all night long until three or four in the morning, which caused immense distress.
Many residents expressed frustration and anger at the lack of adequate electrical infrastructure in the new neighborhoods. "It's simply becoming unbearable to live here. We feel like we're in a third world country. The number of power outages and their length are unbearable.".
The CEO of the Israel Electric Corporation, Meir Spiegler, spoke this morning (Sunday) with Nissim Mashal and Anat Davidov on 103FM radio, and claimed that the person to blame for the omission is the Noga company, which operates the electricity generation.
""All the claims are justified," Spiegler said at the beginning of their conversation. "But the story is very, very simple. The Electric Company is essentially the execution contractor as a result of the reform of the Noga Company, which was previously called the System Management Company. They give us instructions to operate power generation stations, essentially power units for electricity generation, when, how many and to what extent, in terms of production capacity.".
He said: "We had two units that we were not asked to operate. One in Orot Rabin in Hadera, with a capacity of about 370 megawatts, and one in Rothenberg in Ashkelon with a capacity of 575 megawatts. If both were working, there would be no...".
Later, Spiegler repeated: "Two electricity generation units were not activated because we did not receive the directive to activate them. I do not activate what I want, when I want. From the moment the reform took place, they added another company, bureaucracy, regulation, paperwork.".
The company's CEO noted that in order to operate a unit, one must obtain approval from Noga: "Each of us has a legal basis, but there are also powers that are anchored in the law. The Electric Company operates power plants in accordance with what is instructed to it. The company has long been a monopoly. Today, it produces about 50 percent of the electricity in the country alone. After we sell the additional station, we will be down to about 33 percent of electricity production. We are in favor of competition, we want competition. In this aspect of competition, the reform was good, but in other aspects it created more regulation, more bureaucracy, and more barriers.".
When asked whether the planned outages are just a promo for many outages later in the summer, Spiegler replied: "I very much hope that we will learn from what happened on Friday and not repeat the same mistakes. The electric company is ultimately the executing agency, and we receive instructions. By the way, unfortunately, because in the past it was not like that.".
""Where is the electric company's responsibility?" Spiegler was asked.
He answered: "In that we do what is incumbent on us, and that we don't reach a situation where we can generate electricity and don't generate it. We are doing everything to ensure that this is the case. Before the reform, the Electric Company had a unit that estimated the electricity that would be required even in times of extreme demand. They simply took it out of the Electric Company, established a new company called Noga, and we see the rest every day.".
Deputy Minister Uri Maklev said this morning at the entrance to the government meeting: "Managing the electricity sector must be done in a calculated manner. Unfortunately, tens of thousands of families suffered on Shabbat, were unable to prepare food, challahs were not baked in the oven. Managing the electricity sector must also take into account Fridays when the weather is bad in order to avoid a situation where there will be initiated power outages on Shabbat eve and holidays.".
