Tel Aviv transfers 47 million dollars from Palestinian clearance funds to Israeli families

Tel Aviv announced on Tuesday the transfer of 149 million shekels (47 million dollars) from Palestinian clearance funds to dozens of Israeli families claiming that individuals from them were killed in attacks carried out by Palestinians.

The Enforcement Office in Jerusalem collected 149 million shekels from the Palestinian Authority's funds, which were transferred to 124 compensation cases for families of terrorism victims, according to its claim.

The funds were collected at the Enforcement Office in Jerusalem affiliated with the Execution and Collection Authority (affiliated with the Ministry of Justice) and transferred to representatives of the families of the deceased and victims.

It explained that with the "difficulty in collecting these amounts from the perpetrators of the operations sentenced to prison, the seizure of the allocations transferred to them by the Palestinian Authority enabled the implementation of judicial rulings".

"Clearance" is funds imposed on goods imported to the Palestinian side, whether from Israel or through border crossings controlled by Tel Aviv, and collected by the latter on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Starting from 2019, Israel decided to deduct amounts from Palestinian clearance funds under various pretexts, which plunged the Authority into a financial crisis that made it unable to pay its employees' salaries in full.

After the start of the war on Gaza on October 8, 2023, the Israeli government began transferring only about 30 percent of the clearance funds, after deducting what the Palestinian government pays to the Gaza Strip in salaries and social affairs.

For the seventh month in a row, Israel has refrained from transferring clearance funds to the Palestinian Authority, and repeatedly, its ministers, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have incited against the Authority.

On October 4, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the international community to "oblige Israel to stop all its unilateral measures that violate international law, foremost among them stopping settlement, settler terrorism, attacks on holy sites, and withholding Palestinian tax funds".