The Palestinian Authority has cut the salaries of Palestinian lawmakers who happen to be Hamas members or supporters in the occupied West Bank, the group’s parliamentary bloc said on Monday. “The PA has cut the salaries of 47 Hamas MPs in the West Bank,” the Change and Reform bloc was reported as saying by Anadolu.

In the latest move by the PA to try to undermine the Islamic movement, it has also cut the salaries of several employees in the offices of Hamas MPs in the parliament headquarters in the West Bank. It is two months since PA leader Mahmoud Abbas

said that he would take “unprecedented” measures against Gaza to put pressure on Hamas to quit ruling the coastal enclave.

The Change and Reform statement noted that the PA also cut the salaries of Hamas MPs in the Gaza Strip in 2007, immediately after Hamas had forcefully ended a state of chaos orchestrated by Fatah following the Islamic Resistance Movement’s resounding victory in the previous year’s general election.

Moreover, the PA then cut the salaries of thousands of its employees in Gaza, who refused the order from Ramallah to stay at home. Incredibly in a time of national political and financial crisis, Abbas and Fatah have been paying its loyalists in Gaza not to go into work in Hamas-run ministries and public bodies.

Source: Quds Press International News Agency
Translated by: Middle East Monitor
In collaboration with the Palestinian Media Forum