GAZA (Reuters) – The Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday it would pay partial salaries to most of its employees after Israel transferred some revenue it collects on behalf of Palestinians, Palestinian officials said.
A week into June, the Palestinian finance ministry said employees would receive 80 percent of their salaries on Tuesday. It has not been able to pay full salaries since November, blaming Israel’s withholding of tax revenue and low international donations.
The drop in wages coincided with public discontent over a sharp rise in the prices of essential foodstuffs that prompted residents of the southern city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to take to the streets in protest .
“The Ministry of Finance is making huge efforts to compel the occupation authorities to transfer our money so that we can make the salaries available,” Amjad Ghanim, the Palestinian cabinet secretary, told Reuters by phone from Ramallah.
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He said declining levels of international aid had also reduced the funding available.
Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara estimated that Israel withheld $500 million in tax revenue. He recently said that Israel deducts 100 million shekels ($30 million) every month.
Under a 2018 law, Israel annually calculates the amount it estimates the Palestinian Authority has paid in stipends to activists and deducts that amount from taxes it has collected on behalf of Palestinians.
Israel calls the allowances for activists and their families a “pay for slay” policy that encourages violence. Palestinians hail their imprisoned brothers as heroes in a struggle for an independent state and believe their families deserve support.
Palestinian tax revenue, which Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians each month, amounts to approximately 900 million shekels ($271 million).
The Palestinian Authority employs 150,000 people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At the end of 2021, its budget was $330 million while expenses were $300 million.
On Monday, human rights defenders said police forces, deployed in large numbers a day ago, detained 11 protesters for several hours before releasing them late at night.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank, has already exempted wheat from the tax hikes introduced in February. Protesters demanded that tax exemptions be extended to other basic necessities.
As the war in Ukraine has driven up commodity prices, the cost of food staples like flour, sugar and cooking oil has risen 30% since March, traders and protesters say. Official figures put the increase at between 15 and 18%.
(Additional report Ali Sawafta,; Written by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ed Osmond)
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