Six weeks after taking office, the Western-shunned Hamas government presides over Palestinian areas on the brink of collapse due to the stop in international aid flows.
Long queues of motorists waiting at empty petrol stations in the West Bank were the latest sign on Wednesday of the crisis after an Israeli company stopped deliveries the day before.
”Without fuel the vital facilities will no longer function, including hospitals and government agencies,” warns Mujahid Salameh, director of the Palestinian petroleum authority. Water supplies and the energy system are also in danger.
The Palestinian leadership now sees a humanitarian catastrophe shaping up on the horizon.
The situation in the Gaza Strip is already more tense. It is not only because of the deadly gun clashes that have taken place between backers of the Hamas and those of the previously ruling Fatah.
Many shops are closed and doctors are complaining about a shortage of vital medicines. There is scarcely any traffic on the streets. Because government offices and companies can no longer pay out salaries, some Palestinians are starting to sell their family jewels.
Western donor countries have stopped their support because Hamas continues to refuse to recognise Israel. The Palestinian group has not carried out any further attacks for a year now, but it also still stresses that the Palestinians maintain the right to carry out attacks as part of their self-defence.
Given such a stance, Israel is withholding Palestinian customs duties and tax income.
Now, the Mideast ”Quartet” — the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia — wants to prevent a complete collapse of the Palestinians and their economy. As a result, from now on aid funds are to bypass the Hamas government and go directly to the Palestinians.
What is above all at stake are the salaries of more than 150 000 employees in the Palestinian bureaucracy, as well as humanitarian aid to the people. A fund is to be established from which payments — initially limited to a three-month period — can be made.
It is not only the Palestinian leadership that is viewing this plan with scepticism. Experts doubt whether such support can over the long run really be kept out of the reach of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority.
The extent of the collapse cannot be underestimated, according to experts at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) who are in Jerusalem to coordinate international assistance.
”The United Nations is not capable — neither by mandate nor by its capacity — to replace the Palestinian Authority or the quality and scope of its services,” the Ocha experts added.
So, the Palestinians, after giving the majority of their votes to Hamas in the parliamentary elections, now face a further downward spiral.
Although the Palestinians are listed among the biggest per-capita recipients of aid in the world, their economic strength has continually shrunk since the year 2000.
A report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development said the economic situation has become such that development assistance has now started to turn into emergency aid. — Sapa-dpa