The Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on May 1 announced that the treasury has frozen the routine transfer of taxes and fees it collects for the Palestinian Authority (PA) until Israel knows that the money will not end up in the hands of Hamas. Steinitz told Israel Army Radio that some 300 million Israeli shekel ($88 million) that were to have been transferred this week to PA will now stay in Israeli hands until it becomes clear the funds will not reach the coffers of “the Hamas terrorist organisation.” Under the Oslo Accords, Israel collects tax and customs duties worth more than $1 billion a year on behalf of the PA, making up some two-thirds of the entity’s annual budget.
At the beginning of 2001, during the second intifada, Israel withheld more than $50 million in taxes it owed the Palestinians in order to force the PA to crack down on Palestinian armed groups.
Meanwhile, Deputy Parliament speaker of Palestine Ahmad Bahar has condemned Israel’s lobbying against a Palestinian unity pact and called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement to dismiss all “Israeli threats.” “Israel’s threats and the (US President Barack) Obama administration’s policy will not stand in the way of the Palestinians’ interest or their cause,” Bahar said in a statement stressing the need to oppose such behaviour in the interest of unity.