As Israel prepares to pull the socket on the electricity supply to Gaza in response to rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory, the lights are coming back on in the West Bank as cooperation is renewed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Roundly applauded by both sides as a “joyous occasion”, around 300 Palestinian residents in the town of Khirbet Jabara are being connected to the main power grid over the coming weeks.

Located between Israel’s barrier and the pre-1967 border Green Line in the Tulkarem District, the town had relied on generators running up to four hours a day.

With the help of the Belgian government it built its own internal power distribution network and has been able to establish a small control station connect to the Israel Electric Company (IEC) grid.

The new system will also mean improved safety for the residents. As IEC representatives assess the former grid, protruding power lines present an added impetus for renovation.

According to one technician, “A child can come along and get electrocuted, literally fly back. Slowly, things will get safer.”

For many, the implications of the new grid are positive, as Farouq Awad, a member of the local council, and Said, a resident, observe:

This is going to make life here much better. I hope we can now have an industrial zone, open factories and create more jobs.

Everyone will have power. Before, people here suffered all the time. They could not refrigerate food, could not keep medicines at home. They had to go every day to the doctor to get their medicines. Now people can keep them at home.

It is hoped that the renovations will be finalised by late autumn, and little time is being wasted in assessing the political benefits that will be reaped.

District Commander Grisha Yakabovitz, for example, believes that the work could prove fruitful for future relations between Palestinians and Israelis:

We hope that doing good humanitarian work for the Palestinians here will bring about political profits in the short and long terms. This is maybe a new beginning, bringing together such high-ranking Palestinians and Israelis.

Doubtless, it is a positive development. But Khirbet Jabara is but one town, and as the barrier and pre-1967 Green Line loom large on the horizon restricting travel opportunities, one cannot but acknowledge this as a very tiny step in the right direction.