The Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced it will cease to pay its bills to the Israel Electric Company as it faces a looming fiscal crisis. Estimates say that the sum of the bills is as high as NIS 1 billion. The PA took the step in retaliation for Israel’s decision to deduct NIS 502 million ($138) a year from the PA tax revenues.
The PA spent about NIS 500,600,000 ($130 million) in 2018 on stipends for terrorists.
Similarly, the PA has recently blocked the hospitalization of patients from the PA in Israeli hospitals, financially targeting the Israeli medical institutions.
While the PA is refusing to receive the tax transfers from Israel in its entirety, the street in the PA is upset following the exposure of the fact the PA ministers had given themselves a salary raise while cutting funds for social welfare projects.
Newly leaked PA memos show that it pays the rent of 20 high-ranking officials at a sum of $10,000 each. The documents exposing the pay hike and the rent payouts were circulated on social media, where they were met with anger and sharp criticism.
The PA pays tens of thousands of dollars for rent while it starves its own people, social media users charged.
Arab media reported that Israel in recent days again attempted to transfer the taxes it collected on behalf of the PA to the Authority, but the PA refused the funds again.
The PA has announced it will not receive any tax transfers from Israel following the cut, taking an “all or nothing” stance, a move that could lead to the PA’s complete collapse.
The PA is also preparing for an Israeli court ruling that would force the PA to pay reparations to Israeli victims of terrorism, funds which Israel may deduct from the taxes it transfers to the PA.
PA spokesman Ibrahim Malham stated in this context that “someone who steals once will steal again,” while Tyasir Khaled, a member of the PLO leadership called Israel “a band of thieves.”