The discourse in Israel regarding the state budget discussions reached Ramallah, and the Palestinian Authority announced that it was rejecting its "allocation of funds for the benefit of the settlements in the West Bank." In a statement, the office of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that "Minister Smotrich's proposal to allocate millions of shekels from the budget to strengthen the settlements comes as part of the overall war that the occupation is waging against the Palestinian people, its land and its holy places in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem."
Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for the Palestinian presidential office, said: "This comes at a time when Israel is holding Palestinian tax revenues," and warned of the implications for regional stability. He also demanded that the US administration intervene "to prevent the implementation of this move" and "exert pressure on Israel to release the tax money."
No salary. Palestinian policemen, photo: Dudu Greenspan (archive)
The Palestinian Authority refuses to accept tax revenues from Israel following the cabinet's decision to deduct the amount allocated to the Gaza Strip. Gaza says the salaries of Palestinian Authority officials in Gaza, who routinely receive their salaries from Ramallah, have not yet been paid in the last month of the war.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also strongly condemned "the proposal of far-right minister Smotrich to divert funds to deepen the settlement enterprise in occupied Palestinian land," and warned that the Israeli government's approval of this proposal would mean accelerating the gradual, declared and undeclared annexation of the West Bank. "This will destroy the opportunity to implement the two-state solution and change the political, legal and demographic reality in the West Bank, and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital," it said.
Riots in the village of Silwad near Ramallah, photo: // Reuters
The statement added: "It is clear that the extreme right in Israel, represented in the government by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, is exploiting the atmosphere of genocide against our people in Gaza to create new facts in the West Bank that will serve their aspirations – through more plans to expand settlements, erase the so-called Green Line and encourage settler militias to escalate the open war against Palestinian existence in Jerusalem and Area C."
Crossing from Gaza to Egypt after Rafah Crossing opens | From social networks
At the same time, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Monday: "Gaza is in a state of disaster, we must act and invest every effort to reach a permanent ceasefire. It is necessary to take advantage of the opportunity to extend the hudna." Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that "the world must treat the Gaza Strip as a disaster-stricken region."
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