Today, Monday, the Ministry of Finance denied what was reported in Hebrew newspapers about the Israeli government providing financial facilitations to the Palestinian National Authority.

The Director General of Customs, Excise, and Value Added at the Ministry of Finance, who is responsible for accounting with the Israeli side, Louay Hanash, said, “Contrary to what is reported in the Israeli press, the current Israeli government has doubled the illegal unilateral deductions from Palestinian taxpayer funds in an unprecedented manner, ranging from these deductions range from 240-260 million shekels per month, equivalent to 25% of the Authority’s revenues from the tax money collected by Israel, without any detail or explanation about these deductions.”

Israel also deducts 3% of the clearing funds as a collection commission, the monthly average of which exceeds 35 million shekels, as this commission for the past ten years has exceeded 3 billion shekels.

Hanash pointed to what Finance Minister Shukri Bishara demanded at the donors’ meeting, held in New York last month, where he stressed the previous Palestinian demands that require the necessity of completely abolishing this commission on fuel purchases, reinforcing his position with reports issued by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the necessity of canceling it, as all transactions for these purchases are carried out electronically and directly between Israeli companies and the Palestine Petroleum Authority, and reducing the commission to 1.5% is insufficient and shows the extent of the Israeli thefts in this file and that it must be completely cancelled.

Bishara also stressed, according to the Director General of Customs, his previous and ongoing demands for the necessity of reducing the collection commission that Israel generally charges on all other goods, so that it is based on the cost, which the World Bank estimated in one of its reports that it should not exceed a maximum of 0.6%. What clearly shows the extent of the Israeli thefts is in this file alone.

At the donors' meeting, the Minister of Finance said that Israel's solution to only 5 of the many outstanding financial files between the two sides would achieve financial balance in the Palestinian budget.

Hanash explained that the Israeli side has punitively and illegally deducted, in exchange for what the Authority provides to the families of those affected by the Israeli occupation and the families of the martyrs, prisoners and wounded, an amount of 2.8 billion shekels, and these deductions are still continuing.

In addition to its monthly deductions that have been ongoing for many years and that violate all agreements, Hanash said that the Israeli government recently added a monthly deduction at the rate of 20-30 million shekels, deducted from the debts accumulated by the Jerusalem Electricity Company, noting that it is a private company and the authority supports it in repaying its loans and supporting the price of electricity. And paying off camp debts.

Hanash stressed that these cuts clearly demonstrate that the occupation is responsible for the stifling financial crisis that the Authority is going through and the main obstacle to the development of the Palestinian economy.