JERUSALEM, 9 May 2006 — The donor-starved Palestinian Authority may cease to function if government employees continue to go without salaries for much longer, the World Bank warned in a new report released yesterday. Civil servants will simply down tools and discipline in the ranks of the security services could well collapse if pay checks, which have not arrived for the last two months, are not forthcoming, the Washington-based body said.
The European Union and United States have both frozen aid payments to the Palestinian Authority since the Islamist movement Hamas took power over its refusal to renounce the use of violence or accept Israel’s right to exist. Israel has also stopped handing over customs duties it used to collect on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, worth around $60 million a month.
Although Muslim countries have pledged tens of millions in a bid to plug the gap, the funds have yet to be transferred with banks wary of falling foul of international laws that prohibit the financing of terrorist organizations. A previous report by the World Bank last month had warned that the Palestinian economy would experience a dramatic decline with incomes decreasing by 30 percent and unemployment doubling by the end of the year. But even those dire projections “now appear too rosy,” the new survey said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday called on the Middle East quartet to resume financial aid and reiterated his willingness to enter immediate negotiations with Israel. Abbas wrote in a letter to the quartet — which comprises Russia, the United Nations, United States and European Union — that “the payment of aid and financial support for the Palestinian Authority should resume in order to avoid a real humanitarian crisis,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
Meanwhile, three people were killed yesterday when fighting erupted in the Gaza Strip between Fatah forces backing Abbas and Hamas loyalists, in the most serious Palestinian internal strife since Hamas came to power.
