The Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom revealed, on Monday morning, that the Israeli Ministry of Finance, led by the extremist Bezalel Smotrich, managed to uncover a legal loophole that makes it possible for the first time to collect money for electricity consumption, as a prelude to recovering the debts accumulated by the Palestinian Authority for the areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

According to the Hebrew newspaper, this legal loophole, which will turn into a legal scheme that will be adopted as an official decision, will allow the authority’s funds to be deducted monthly from the clearing house, similar to the money that is deducted from the electricity allocated to the Gaza Strip.

The debts of the Palestinian Authority over several years amount to two billion shekels, as Israel faces difficulties in collecting the debts. As the paper says.

It pointed out that Smotrich instructed, in a meeting that took place 3 months ago, to solve the problem radically, and after an examination, a legal solution was reached under the “implementation” law that was issued in the wake of the Oslo Accords, which allows debts to be deducted from the clearance funds of the Palestinian Authority, which is under the control of Smotrich.

It points out that one of the obstacles facing the possibility of recovering debts is that the entity that supplies electricity to the Palestinians in East Jerusalem is the Jerusalem Electricity Company, and without proving its relationship with the Palestinian Authority, debts cannot be recovered from it. However, Smotrich’s office was able to prove the relationship between them, and showed that 19% of the company's shareholders are local authorities affiliated to the Palestinian Authority, and 7 out of 18 members of its board of directors are members on behalf of the municipal authorities.

The newspaper indicated that after this was reached, Smotrich signed for the first time a clearing of the electricity bill to deduct it from the Palestinian Authority's funds.

It is expected that the monthly discount will reach from 20 to 30 million shekels per month, which will be transferred to the Israeli Electricity Company.

This does not include the two billion shekels debt, which Smotrich must settle in agreement with the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, given that this is a political event in which the Americans may intervene in order to save the Palestinian Authority and prevent its economic collapse, as the newspaper says.