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Israel 'blackmailing' Palestinians by withholding tax revenues 

June 5, 2020 at 12:51 pm

Palestinians hold banners during a demonstration demanding boycott against Israeli products in response to cutting of Palestinian tax revenues in Ramallah, West Bank on 6 August 2019. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]

Israel is withholding tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority for the month of May until the PA reactivates the security coordination agreement with Tel Aviv, Palestinian officials said.

Chairman of the Palestinian General Authority for Civil Affairs, Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh said on Twitter that the Palestinian leadership has refused to receive the tax revenues for the month of May from Israel in implementation of President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to stop security coordination with Israel.

Palestinian government spokesman, Ibrahim Milhem said later that the government had rejected Israel’s “blackmail”.

READ: Is the PA exchanging security coordination for civil coordination with Israel?

“Israel refused to transfer the tax revenues …. Unless we resume security coordination with it,” Milhem said in a statement, adding that the government is committed to implementing the Palestinian leadership’s decision to stop all forms of coordination with Israel.

On 19 May, President Mahmoud Abbas announced the suspension of all agreements signed with Israel including the Paris Economic Agreement, which regulates trade and economic relations between the two parties, in response to Israel’s plans to annex nearly 30 per cent of the occupied West Bank to it.

Palestinian Tax Revenues - Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]

Palestinian Tax Revenues – Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]