RAMALLAH/PNN/ Under the patronage and presence of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, Palestine and Germany signed today at the Prime Minister’s Office in Ramallah a €16 million agreement provided by Germany to build two solar power stations in the Gaza Strip with a total capacity of about 18 megawatts. The Prime Minister thanked the Federal Republic of Germany for its continuous support to Palestine, expressing his gratitude for this strategic relationship, noting that this important agreement serves hundreds of thousands of the people in the Gaza Strip, provides them with a clean energy source and contributes to reducing the cost of water treatment, which is in line with the priorities of the national development plan. For his part, the head of the German Representative Office in Palestine, Oliver Owcza, stressed the importance of the agreement for several reasons, first because it improves the living conditions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, reduces water treatment costs and increases dependence on clean energy, thus protecting the environment from pollution. The first station will be in the Rafah area, and the second in Sudaniya to supply the desalination plant in the area with solar energy. This station produces about 10,000 cubic meters of treated drinking water, and it is one of several vital projects in the water and sanitation sector which the government, represented by the Water Authority, built in the Gaza Strip in cooperation with international partners, including the Federal Republic of Germany, according to Estephan Salameh, adviser to the Prime Minister. In light of the many challenges, particularly the significant shortage in power to operate these plants, the government's approach, represented by the water and energy authorities, along with international partners, is working to provide the largest possible amount of clean energy and treated water for drinking, he said. The agreement was signed on the Palestinian side by the Head of the Water Authority, Mazen Ghoneim, the head of the Energy Authority, Dhafer Melhem, and the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance, Farid Ghannam, while the German side was represented by the Director of the KfW office David Kunze.