http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061952.html
Last update - 23:08 05/02/2009
Clinton lauds 'courageous' Olmert approval of NIS 175m transfer to Gaza
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and Reuters
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Fatah
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lauded Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
'courageous' decision to allow the transfer of NIS 175 million from the West
Bank to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
The money is earmarked for paying the January salaries of Palestinian
Authority employees in the coastal territory.
Speaking by phone with Olmert, Clinton also called the move important for
strengthening moderates in the PA. Olmert told her that he reached the decision
despite opposition within the government in order to bolster the moderates at
Hamas' expense.
Even though the money will not come from Israel, Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak opposed the decision. They argued that
the cash is likely to end up in the coffers of Hamas, against which Israel
recently waged a 22-day offensive in Gaza.
There are more than 70,000 clerks and security officials affiliated with
Fatah, the movement headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas that was violently
ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007.
The officials receive the money from the PA in order not to turn up for
work and collaborate with Hamas by doing so.
Israel has been under pressure for months from Middle East envoy Tony
Blair, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to lift its
restrictions on cash transfers from the West Bank, where Abbas's government is
based, to Gaza.
They said Israel was undermining the Palestinian banking sector, making
it harder for Gazans to cover basic needs and weakening Abbas's Western-backed
government in Hamas's stronghold.
Since the end of Israel's offensive last month, Hamas has paid salaries
to its own workers.
But the head of Abbas's government, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, said
earlier this week that he would be unable to do so because of the shortage of
currency in the territory.
Israel did not say when the money would enter the Gaza Strip and did not
say why the amount was less than the NIS 237 million by Fayyad.
Barak approved a similar transfer in December last year, after
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley
Fischer appealed to him to help ease the cash shortages in Gaza.
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