Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

AP/Press Association Images

Israel has punished Palestine by freezing bank accounts, leaving people penniless

Palestine applied to join the International Criminal Court, angering Israel.

PALESTINIAN HEAD TEACHER Abdelhakim Abu Jamus has just given his last shekels to his daughter for school and has nothing left to feed his family of eight.

Like tens of thousands of Palestinian public sector workers, he has not been paid since December after Israel suspended millions of dollars in tax revenues which should have been transferred to the Palestinian Authority, as punishment for joining the International Criminal Court.

“I gave my daughter the last money I had and now I don’t know how we’re going to manage tomorrow,” said Abu Jamus who runs a school in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

On 2 January, the Palestinians formally presented a request to join the Hague-based ICC in a first step towards suing Israel for war crimes.

Mideast Weather AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Israel reacted furiously, freezing $127 million (€110 million) in tax revenues that are usually transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA) — a move often employed as a punitive measure during diplomatic disputes.

Under an economic agreement between the sides signed in 1994, Israel transfers to the PA tens of millions of dollars each month in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports.

Although the sanction has been imposed many times, it has rarely lasted more than one or two months, except in 2006 when Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections.

On that occasion Israel froze the funds for six months.

Blocking the money deprives the PA of more than two-thirds of its monthly budget, excluding foreign aid, and prevents it paying its roughly 180,000 employees, which costs almost $200 million (€170 million) a month.

Quick solution needed

“We know very well that Israel freezes the money for political reasons to put pressure on the Authority, but as civil servants we need to see the situation resolved quickly,” Abu Jamus said.

Dalal Yassin, who works for Palestinian television, also has not been paid since Israel froze the transfers.

But she is in a better position than most because her husband works in the private sector.

Mideast Weather AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

“I see my colleagues struggling to pay their monthly bills and going through a really difficult time,” she told AFP.

The Palestinian government has managed to raise enough funds to start paying 60 percent of the December salaries “through loans, Arab aid and its own resources”.

Ahead of a major winter storm earlier this month, many Palestinians went out and bought heaters to combat a cold snap which has only just begun to ease.

Arab foreign ministers have promised to provide the Palestinians with a monthly “safety net” of $100 million (€86 million), but the commitment has rarely been activated.

In order to counter the soaring unemployment rate, the Palestinian public sector enlarged its ranks — and with it, its monthly spending on salaries.

© AFP 2015

Read: Israel warns of ‘retaliatory steps’ as Palestine signs up to International Criminal Court

Author
View 72 comments
Close
72 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pat Daly
    Favourite Pat Daly
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 7:42 AM

    Typical of the attitude of the Munster branch towards the club’s choosing to dictate rather then support when it comes to spending money gained on the back of the grass roots

    56
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
    Favourite Cormac Ó Braonáin
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 6:07 PM

    @Pat Daly: in fairness Dolphin’s reasoning was pretty weak? Privacy? FFS

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Sinnott
    Favourite Martin Sinnott
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 7:43 AM

    A few more pictures needed

    35
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute prop joe
    Favourite prop joe
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 9:49 AM

    @Martin Sinnott: i’ll be honest the way it is now is fine. Building a massive concrete wall would look terrible never mind be very expensive.

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute prop joe
    Favourite prop joe
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 5:57 PM

    @Martin Sinnott: basically its a security fence and you can see onto the pitches. I don’t see a problem with this fence. A concrete wall would look terrible.

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Trevor Donoghue
    Favourite Trevor Donoghue
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 2:46 PM

    So the club sold the land to Mc donalds to build a mc donalds on and now the club is annoyed that mc donalds built a mcdonalds?

    29
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Rossi Rossborough
    Favourite Rossi Rossborough
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 3:51 PM

    @Trevor Donoghue:

    Lol, pretty much!

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Michael Kavanagh
    Favourite Michael Kavanagh
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 6:53 AM

    Sounds like a ‘line break’ to me!

    17
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute eastsmer
    Favourite eastsmer
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 11:56 AM

    Munster Rugby was also the entity which sold the McDonald’s site to the fast food franchise in the first place.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Charlie Hunter
    Favourite Charlie Hunter
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 8:41 AM

    They should organise a protest a la Doonbeg wall scenario, get rent-a-mob down in numbers and overturn the ruling on humanitarian grounds …be handy for the protestors too with a McDonald’s in the vicinity for a bit of grub when they’re famished from all the chanting.

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gerry Fallon
    Favourite Gerry Fallon
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 11:02 AM

    So you can sit in McDonald’s eating your big Mac and watch a crap rugby team play.
    Is it more to do with embarrassment than anything else?

    17
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Rossi Rossborough
    Favourite Rossi Rossborough
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 3:45 PM

    @Gerry Fallon:
    Gerry you are a, emmmmm, oh I know .
    A spastic!!!

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Holland
    Favourite Paul Holland
    Report
    Jul 2nd 2018, 12:55 PM

    I never like conflict like this because people lose and money goes on legal fees. I don’t know enough to form an honest opinion but I would say to the rugby club – you mightn’t be as badly off as the GAA were in Limerick when they tried to develop Punch Park in the city decades ago

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eilish Kelly
    Favourite Eilish Kelly
    Report
    Jul 4th 2018, 9:51 AM

    why don’t they build a wooden 8ft fence on there side of the boundary line. They could even paint a mural on the side facing out to McDonald’s on how playing GAA makes u fit ,healthy and part of the community ,Were eating junk food (burgers) makes u fat and unhealthy

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.