Palestinian Financial Crisis Worsens As Israel Halts 13 Consecutive Months Of Tax Revenue

KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 (Bernama) -- The Israeli occupying authority’s continued withholding of Palestinian external tax revenues, now in its thirteenth consecutive month, has exacerbated the Palestinian financial crisis to an unprecedented level.

The Palestinian authority said the move has also jeopardised its ability to provide basic services to the people at a time when continuous strikes are hitting several important sectors including the medical, teaching, and engineering unions.

In the health sector, financial pressures and the continued withholding of Palestinian funds has brought about a critical shortage of medicine supply, with more than 35 per cent medicines and medical consumables no longer available at public health centres.

“The shortage involves medicines for the treatment of cancer and chronic diseases, along with baby formulas, thereby endangering the lives of thousands of patients and denying them their basic human rights for healthcare,” said the Palestinian Prime Minister’s Office in a latest situation report released on Tuesday.

In the education sector, the report said the fiscal crisis has directly disrupted the smooth running of the educational process, following a drastic reduction in working hours and a decline in attendance rates among  teachers and students.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has intensified restriction of Palestinian movement throughout the occupied West Bank.

Israel has erected some 930 military roadblocks and heavy metal gates that serve to obstruct or restrict movement between Palestinian territories covering an estimated 2,380 kilometres square area.

Additionally, the Israeli right-wing government has announced the setting up of 103 new illegal settlements – an unprecedented figure in the entire history of the Israeli illegal settlement project.

The report calls these measures an effort to exert control over the Palestinian population and geographical breakdown, and to continue to divide Palestinian areas in nearly 60 per cent of the West Bank.

“The measures are meant to effectively foil the possible establishment of a Palestinian state, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international legitimacy resolutions, in particular, Resolution 2334 of the United Nations Security Council,” the report said.

-- BERNAMA