RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Cabinet condemned the continued attacks by armed Israeli colonists on Palestinian people, the latest of which was last night on villages south of Bethlehem, in Masafer Yatta, and the Jordan Valley, and the bombing of the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm by the occupation forces, in conjunction with the targeting and bombing of civilian homes in Rafah, Khan Yunis and the entire Gaza Strip.
The Cabinet warned, at the opening of the weekly government session held today in the city of Ramallah, of the widening circle of Israeli escalation day after day; noting that in addition to the bloody war on the Gaza Strip, the attacks of colonists are escalating in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.
It stressed that greater international efforts must be exerted to redress Palestinian rights and implement international legitimacy resolutions, and that “there are practical steps on our part to preserve our national achievements.”
“The bloody war on the ground is being completed by Israel by piracy of
the money of Palestinian people, as the occupation practices political and financial blackmail to pressure the Palestinian leadership to stop transferring the Gaza Strip’s allocations of salaries for medical staff, teachers, relief crews, and others, which amount to about 275 million shekels per month, and continues to deduct the same amount from the clearance funds since last October, in an effort to continue disrupting the unification of the two parts of the homeland,” Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said.
He added, “The Israeli government continues to deduct the allocations of the families of martyrs and prisoners that began in February 2019, and have reached about 3.5 billion shekels so far, and despite these deductions, the Palestinian Authority continues to fulfill its obligations towards these groups of our people, and so the financial burden becomes doubled, as Israel deducts similar amounts from the clearance revenues to what the Palestinian Authority pays to these groups.”
The Prime Minister revie
wed the latest developments in the file of financial extortion by Israel, as the repercussions of the Israeli piracy of our money have reached a dangerous level, after the Israeli Knesset recently approved the so-called ‘Law to Compensate the Families of Israeli Fatalities’, which entered into force at the beginning of last June.
He said: “This new law allows for compensation for Israeli families from the clearance revenues with imaginary amounts of up to 10 million shekels for the family of each Israeli killed, and deducting no less than 5 million shekels as compensation for the wounded, without specifying the extent of the injury, as the newly approved compensation law holds the Palestinian National Authority indirectly responsible for all operations that targeted Israelis since October 7 until now and retroactively.”
In this regard, he explained that according to lawyers’ reports, there is currently talks of 195 lawsuits filed by the families of the aforementioned, demanding compensation worth more than
5 billion shekels, in addition to cases filed by agents against the Palestinian National Authority who were compensated with tens of millions of shekels deducted from the clearance funds.”
Mustafa stressed that the president personally, and alongside the government, is leading legal, political and diplomatic efforts to pressure towards stopping the aggression against Palestinian people in the first place, stopping these unjust laws and canceling them, and recovering Palestinian people’s withheld funds.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA