israel power outage
© AgenciesPower outage in Israel (Representative image)
Israel on Monday (Dec 25) found itself grappling with widespread power outages and internet blackouts after at least two production units of a major power company collapsed.

The blackout fueled speculations that it might have something to do with the ongoing war in Gaza and a potential cyberattack by Iran.

However, Meir Spiegler, the CEO of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) rubbished these claims, without providing any cause for the collapse of the units.

Spiegler instead said the cause of the blackout is not known yet.

Israel's Channel 11 reported that the initial outage hit 150,000 people throughout the country; however, most of them were reconnected with power grids within hours, with just 34,000 people remaining disconnected.

What caused the blackout?

According to local media reports, the IEC said that alternative units were put into operation as soon as the two units collapsed.

"This break caused loadshedding that caused power outages in a number of locations across the country. Alternative production units went into operation and electricity returned to most of the outages," the IEC stated.

"The faults reported by consumers across the country are not the result of a cyber attack, but a fault in a production unit that supplies 250 megawatts. The system carried out 'load shedding' and now new production units are being brought into operation in order to overcome the fault. In some places the electricity has already," it added.

Investigation launched

Israeli authorities are now on high alert, and an investigation has already been launched to detect the causes of the blackout.

However, if a cyberattack link is confirmed by the authorities, it could mark a serious escalation in the ongoing conflict which has already involved Iran and its proxies.

Previous reports of cyberattack in Iran

The power outage in Israel comes a week after Iran experienced a nationwide shutdown of fuel distribution services.

A hacking group that Iran accuses of having links to Israel claimed it carried out the attack which disrupted services at petrol stations across the country on Dec 18, Iranian state TV and Israeli local media reported.

(With inputs from agencies) Edited By: Vikrant Singh