Despite a recent rapprochement
between the rival Palestinian factions, a Fatah spokesman recently
accused the Hamas terror of stealing $700 million in charity donations
that were supposed to help rehabilitate the Gaza Strip after the
summer’s conflict.
Fatah
spokesman Ahmad Assaf took to the media to ask what had happened to all
the money in an interview with Al-Awda TV broadcast on September 15,
according to The Middle East Media Research Institute, a
Washington-based media watchdog group.
“During the Israeli aggression against our
people in Gaza, the Hamas leaders in Gaza received $700 million,” Assaf
said, according to a MEMRI translation published Tuesday. “This figure
is well documented, and we know the money sources. Hamas collected money
from all over the world. Where is it?”
“The Hamas leaders took it all,” Assaf charged.
Funding the reconstruction of the Strip has
become a major issue following the 50-day military campaign between
Israel and fighters in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. A number of Arab
states and other countries have pledged money, but funneling money to
Hamas, considered by Israel and the US a terror organization, has proved
a major point of contention amid reconciliation talks between Fatah and
Hamas.
Israel has also demanded that construction
materials let into the Strip be monitored, jittery that they might be
used to rebuild military infrastructure.
Gazan officials estimate reconstruction costs at almost $8 billion.
A major donor conference planned by the
Palestinian Authority to raise money for the Strip is scheduled for
later this month in Norway.
It was not immediately clear where Assaf’s $700 million figure came from.
The two factions came to a reconciliation
agreement in June, ending seven years of bad blood after the Palestinian
Authority was ousted from Gaza by Hamas. The detente seemed to hit a
roadblock during the summer conflict, but last week the sides announced
they had decided to continue on the path to reconciliation following
talks in Cairo.
Speaking before that agreement, Assaf in the interview lashed out at Gaza’s de facto rulers for their duplicity in negotiations.
“We have become accustomed to Hamas being
two-faced,” he said. “In public, they talk big, and use violent terms.
But behind closed doors, especially when talking to the Israelis and
Americans, they use soft and subdued language.”
He directly accused Hamas leader Khaled
Mashaal, living in exile in Qatar, of being an unbearable burden on the
Palestinian people.
“The bill for Khaled Mashaal’s accommodation
has become too steep for the Palestinian people. We are paying this bill
with the blood of our children, women, and elderly. Khaled Mashaal
should return to the Gaza Strip. Why doesn’t Mashaal return to Gaza?”
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