DOHA, 4 December 2006 — Qatar’s emir has promised to pay the salaries of the Palestinian education and health ministries, covering tens of thousands of employees, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said yesterday.
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani has “taken charge of paying the salaries of all employees of the Education Ministry, almost 40,000 people, amounting to $22.5 million a month,” he said at the end of a visit to Doha.
Haniyeh told journalists that the emir had also agreed “to pay, if necessary, the salaries... of some 11,000 employees of the Health Ministry, amounting to $7 million a month.”
Those salaries are currently paid by the European Union, said the leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement, who is on his first foreign tour as prime minister.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian civil servants have only received part of their salaries since Hamas took office in March due to a Western aid boycott and Israel’s refusal to transfer tax revenues.
The total monthly salary bill of the civil service amounts to more than $120 million.
Haniyeh said the emir of Qatar has also pledged to finance the creation of an Islamic bank in the Palestinian territories with initial capital of $50 million, to be doubled to $100 million, and a sports city.
Last week in Strasbourg, Sheikh Hamad criticized Western countries for their attitude toward the embattled Palestinian government. “The Palestinian government, formed by Hamas in accordance with the free will of the Palestinian people, should have the opportunity to work for the people who elected it,” he told the European Parliament.
But “instead of rewarding the Palestinian people for practicing democracy, something rarely witnessed in our region, they have been punished for it,” with an international embargo, he said.
“Is this not double standard: to demand free elections, and then object to the results?” said the emir, whose country has been closely involved in trying to break a deadlock in efforts to form a Palestinian unity government. Haniyeh, who on Friday attended the opening of the Asian Games in Doha, said his movement, which refuses to renounce the armed struggle and recognize past peace deals with Israel, was holding out for key Cabinet posts.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said talks on forming a national unity government between his Fatah faction and Hamas which won elections last January are officially dead.
Abbas said yesterday that he remained hopeful a unity government could still be formed. “The efforts at present have stopped,” Abbas said. “But we must preserve hope.”
He said any delay in creating the government and ending the sanctions will worsen the Palestinian’s economic situation. “We want a government that is able to lift the siege on the Palestinian people,” he said after meeting with French presidential candidate Segolene Royal in Gaza.
Royal called for a resumption of international aid to the Palestinians. “It is necessary to resume international aid to Palestinians,” Royal said.
