Gaza's ruling Hamas on Thursday refused to let Qatar send in $15 million of aid, part of a tortuous standoff involving Israel and rival Palestinian factions that has left thousands of civil servants there short of pay.
In November, Qatar began a six-month, $150 million program to fund the wages of government functionaries and shipments of fuel for power generation in Gaza.
The staggered payments, widely seen as a Qatari bid to increase its regional role, need Israel's permission to get through – an involvement that has riled many among Hamas' Islamist leadership.
Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, said on Thursday that Israel had broken previous agreements brokered by Qatar and Egypt. He said Hamas had told Qatar's ambassador, Mohammed Al-Emadi, that it refused the money "in response to the occupation policy."
"We won't be part of Israel's election theatrics, and therefore we told [Al-Amadi] that we refuse to accept the Qatari payment," Al-Hayya added.
Consequently, the IDF and other security agencies on Friday were bracing for a tense day of Gaza border riots, also amid concerns that Palestinian Islamic Jihad would seek to test the situation by firing rockets at Israel
Gaza economist Mohammad Abu Jayyab said that he believed Qatar had told Hamas leaders that Israel had put new conditions over the mechanism for paying out the money. Israeli officials refused to comment.
The civil servants have also become a symbol of a bitter and protracted power struggle between Hamas, which has its power base in Gaza, and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. With Hamas hardly able to pay its own employees, and Abbas refusing to, the workers were caught in the middle.
Qatar's intervention angered Abbas, whose strategy has been to pressure Hamas back to the negotiating table by slashing salaries, thereby worsening economic conditions in Gaza.
The Qatari largesse has also posed problems for Israel's government, which detests Hamas but does not want to see Gaza's economic problems spill over into violence against Israelis.
Israel initially blocked the latest Qatari transfer, then relented on Thursday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government accepted a "recommendation" by the defense establishment to let the money in.
Opposition Leader MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) said of Netanyahu's decision that "transferring the money directly to Hamas and to [its military leader] Yahya Sinwar while completely neglecting the Palestinian Authority is a serious security and diplomatic mistake. It's ridiculous that we compensate the worst of our enemies and repeatedly kick the PA, with whom we share tight and fruitful security cooperation on a daily basis that prevents terrorist attacks and saves lives. This is what happens in a government with zero diplomatic initiative and which leaves the army as Israel's only defense."
