GAZA CITY, 6 October 2007 — Hamas paid thousands of Gaza security officials yesterday by dishing out cash from suitcases rather than using banks, as Israel tightened a financial clampdown on the Palestinian territory. A senior official at Gaza’s Hamas-run Finance Ministry said the group planned to circumvent banks — some of which have come under Israeli-led pressure to shun Hamas — by paying September salaries to some 20,000 security forces and civil servants in cash.
“We do not want to embarrass the banks and we do not want to allow the Americans and others to undermine these banks,” the Hamas official said.
Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June after it routed rival Fatah, prompting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to sack the Hamas-led government and appoint a Fatah-backed administration in the West Bank.
Israel and Western powers have tried to block funds from reaching Hamas through the Palestinian and international banking system as part of a policy to shore up Abbas and isolate the Islamist group. The Hamas official said the group paid at least 10,000 Hamas security officials yesterday at police stations and security posts. The remaining 10,000 civil servants would be paid in cash tomorrow and on Monday at the Post Office, which is part of the Hamas-run Telecommunications Ministry.
Israeli and Palestinian officials told Reuters this week Gaza’s largest Islamic bank, Palestine Islamic Bank, had received warnings from Israel and the Palestine Monetary Authority, which functions as a central bank.
A top Palestine Islamic Bank official said any accounts opened by militants at branches in the Gaza Strip have already been closed despite threats from the Islamist group.
Israel’s largest commercial bank, Bank Hapoalim, said last month a decision by Israel to brand Gaza an “enemy entity” prompted it to start severing links to the territory. Regulators say other banks could follow suit.
“I received my salary from a suitcase, we did not have to stand in lines at banks,” said one member of Hamas’ Executive Force paramilitary police. The Finance Ministry official said Hamas would pay 33 to 35 million Israeli shekels ($8.74 million) in salaries this month, which it said came from local revenues.
Meanwhile, President George W. Bush said in comments aired yesterday he was “very optimistic” a Palestinian state could be set up alongside Israel and that next month’s Middle East conference could lead toward peace in the region.
The US-sponsored conference is due to take place in the Washington area in late November, although there are doubts over how far it will go toward ending decades of conflict and uncertainty over which Arab states will attend.
