Gaza: Netanyahu justifies itself after allowing Qatari money

Gaza: Netanyahu justifies itself after allowing Qatari money
©
AFP
/ MAHMUD HAMS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified Saturday night his decision to allow Qatar to send $ 15 million to pay the salaries of officials in the Gaza Strip, arguing that it would help restore calm.

The head of the Israeli government has not yet spoken on this issue since Israel authorized the transfer of Qatari funds to the enclave controlled by Hamas, Islamist movement that Israel, the United States and the European Union. consider as "terrorist".

"I do what I can, in coordination with the security services, so that the calm returns to the localities of the south (of Israel), but also to avoid a humanitarian crisis", justified the Prime Minister, before to fly to Paris where he attended Sunday at the centenary ceremonies of the end of the First World War.

Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli security services supported this "good decision", as did the majority of the cabinet ministers, a small forum dealing with the most sensitive issues.

On Friday and Saturday, Palestinian officials in Gaza, who have only been paid sporadically for months, have received salary arrears and some other Gazans from Qatar-funded arrears.

Exceptionally, the Hebrew state, which controls all access to Gaza outside the Egyptian border, left Qatar's ambbadador to Gaza, Mohammed al-Emadi, on Thursday night to cross the Erez crossing between Israel and the enclave with suitcases full of dollars.

In total, it is 90 million dollars Qatar must be distributed in six monthly installments of 15 million, according to Hamas, mainly to pay at least partially the officials of the movement.

"I will not back down from a necessary war but I want to avoid it if it is not essential," Netanyahu told a press conference in Paris during a press conference for Israeli journalists accompanying him on his trip. .

The Prime Minister, however, said there could be "no political solution with those who commit to destroy you", promising to use "maximum force” if the current lull along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel were to disappear.

"Capitulation"

Under the auspices of the UN, Qatar has also agreed to finance for six months, for $ 60 million, fuel oil for the only power plant in Gaza. Deliveries started in October, with Israeli approval, have begun to partially reduce a chronic shortage of power.

Shocks of oxygen for the Gaza Strip affected by wars, Israeli and Egyptian blockades, poverty and shortages, these acts of appeasement are part of the mediation efforts of the United Nations and Egypt to to negotiate a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas after months of demonstrations along the common border.

At least 221 Palestinians have been killed since 30 March by Israeli fire, mainly during demonstrations, but also in Israeli strikes in response to rocket fire. An Israeli soldier was killed.

Israel calls for a return to calm, Hamas a lightening of the vigorous blockade imposed for over ten years by the Jewish state to contain it.

But the appeasement has been criticized by the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who feels short-circuited. Attempting to return to Gaza since being ousted by Hamas, she fears a recognition of fact and the perpetuation of the control of the Islamist movement on the enclave.

On the Israeli side, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman denounced "a capitulation to terrorism," the opposition leader Tzipi Livni referring to "a submission to Hamas".

General elections will be held next year in Israel, and Netanyahu seems to be avoiding a war by then.

"When you are in power, there is always a price to pay," said the prime minister.

11/11/2018 21:17:14 –
Jerusalem (AFP) –
© 2018 AFP