By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Hamas-led authorities have begun suspending electricity supplies to parts of the Gaza Strip for as much as 12 hours a day under a rationing programme prompted by Israeli fuel cuts, a Palestinian official said on Sunday.

Israel began restricting fuel supplies to Gaza in October as part of a sanctions package designed to pressure Islamist Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket salvoes. The cutbacks affect the running of Gaza's lone, EU-sponsored electricity plant.

With plant fuel reserves running too low to supplement the lost imports, the local Energy Authority said it began rationing power to many of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians on Saturday.

"The average is eight hours of cuts a day, but some areas of Gaza City it reaches 12 hours a day," Kanaan Abeid, the authority's Hamas-appointed deputy chairman, told Reuters.

He predicted "technical problems with the transformer equipment, as well as humanitarian crises, for example in the operation of hospital newborn units and water wells".

Israel's sanctions have drawn foreign censure, with critics saying they could amount to illegal "collective punishment" against largely aid-dependent Gaza.

Israel says the only alternative would be a bloody invasion to crush rocket crews. A small-scale Israeli incursion on Sunday killed four Palestinians.

PRESSURE

An Israeli official suggested Hamas, shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence and endorse the peace efforts of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was trying to generate pressure on the Jewish state by rationing some power needlessly.

"Israel is committed to ensuring that essential humanitarian support continues to arrive in Gaza," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"The Palestinians -- Hamas -- have on occasion taken steps to deliberately accentuate a crisis so as to cultivate international sympathy and pressure Israel," he added.

According to Israeli and Palestinian officials, Gaza's population ordinarily consumes 200 megawatts of electricity, of which 65 are produced by the local power plant. Seventeen megawatts are delivered by Egypt and 120 by Israel, although the Israeli Defence Ministry has proposed trimming the latter. Even before sanctions began, Gaza's power supplies had been patchy due to infrastructure damage from Israeli military strikes and poor maintenance.

A European official said EU-funded fuel to the Gaza plant had dropped by 12 percent as a result of the Israeli cutbacks.

Israel's Defence Ministry has said overall fuel supplies to Gaza have been reduced by around 13 percent. Palestinian officials dispute this, reporting fuel cuts of 40 to 50 percent.

(Additional reporting by Adam Entous in Jerusalem, writing by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, editing by Andrew Roche)

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