{"id":824767,"date":"2023-06-04T13:08:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T10:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ch10.co.il\/?p=824767"},"modified":"2025-08-05T17:52:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T14:52:30","slug":"%d7%a2%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%90%d7%9c%d7%a4%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%94%d7%96%d7%99%d7%a2%d7%95-%d7%91%d7%97%d7%95%d7%a9%d7%9a-%d7%9c%d7%9e%d7%94-%d7%97%d7%91%d7%a8%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%97%d7%a9%d7%9e%d7%9c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ch10.co.il\/en\/news\/824767\/","title":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands sweated in the dark: Why is the electricity company shirking responsibility?"},"content":{"rendered":"Against the backdrop of the intense heat on Saturday evening:<\/strong> 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.\r\n\r\nAddictive: Everything you need to know about the harm of e-cigarettes<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\r\n\r\nMany residents of 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 take care of everything on Shabbat as well. "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 sisters. We arrive with joy and happiness from the pleasant Jerusalem and Karmiel to hot, sticky Bnei Brak, and it turns out that there is a planned outage here too. 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 returns, 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 of Bnei Brak, the buildings are dark and a huge truck from the electricity company is trying to restore the electricity. There are no cries of 'sha'abs'. Only families dripping with water and already hoping for salvation. At 2:30 the electricity was restored. I have no idea how everyone managed until this hour without electricity, it's really a hallucination. No hotplate, no refrigerator, no nothing. But I'm very curious if they've also initiated it in Herzliya or Kfar Saba." In Petah Tikva, there were also entire neighborhoods without electricity. "The heart really hurts the most for people who celebrated Shabbat, Sheva Brachot, 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 junction area, a transformer that supplies electricity to the area burned down, and that the fault would be repaired by 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evening. Although electricity was restored in large parts of the city, there were quite a few streets where there was no electricity all Shabbat. "On Hazon Ish Street, we were without electricity all Shabbat. Shame and disgrace, a whole Shabbat without electricity with a three-month-old baby. Just crazy!", said a city resident. "We talked 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 really a nightmare." Another resident said: "I'm from Rashba Street. I called, they said they didn't even know 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 night: "On Masech Hochma Street, some people didn't have it all Shabbat, I still don't." Following particularly hot weather, fires broke out in several locations in the industrial area of \u200b\u200bKiryat Malachi on Friday, which posed a danger to businesses and a nearby gas station. As a result, on Shabbat night, about forty minutes after lighting the candles, the power went out in all the new neighborhoods - Chabad Lane, Carmei Hanadiv, Hamachane - and thousands of city residents were forced to eat the Shabbat meal without light and spend one of the hottest days of the year without air conditioning. The power came back on intermittently, going up and down, throughout the night 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.".\r\n\r\n