Qatar to transfer $480 million to Palestinians in Gaza Strip, West Bank

Qatar says the gas-rich Persian Gulf Arab state has allocated nearly half a billion US dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority as well as the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, in order to support education and health services and provide urgent humanitarian relief.

“The state of Qatar has allocated $300 million in the form of grants and loans to support the health and education sectors' budgets with the Palestinian Authority,” the official Qatar News Agency said on Tuesday.

It noted that Doha had also earmarked another $180 million in “urgent relief and humanitarian aid and in support of UN programs in Palestine.”

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas expressed his gratitude to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for the financial assistance, saying, “The aid will contribute to alleviating the hardships facing Palestinians.”

“The aid, which will be both loans and grants, will help Palestinian people overcome some of their hardships, face the challenges and strengthen their steadfastness on their land until the establishment of their independent Palestinian state with al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital on the 1967 borders,” Abbas stated.

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the politburo for Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, also praised the Qatari decision, saying the aid was “a continuation of the unwavering Qatari stances that support the Palestinian people.”

“We thank Qatar for the honorable grant, which seeks to help the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Qatar continues, even under the most difficult conditions, to support Palestine,” Haniyeh said.

Qatar has committed to providing $15 million a month into the Gaza Strip under an informal agreement struck last November. The funds are meant to pay salaries of Hamas employees and support impoverished Gazans.

On March 11, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip received a new tranche of financial aid donated by Qatar, nearly two months after Hamas said it would not accept Qatari funds following Israel’s blockade of the delivery over unrest along the border between the besieged costal enclave and the occupied territories.

The cash grant of 5.5 million US dollars was distributed to 55,000 families all over the coastal sliver, with each receiving 100 dollars, according to a statement released by the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Development.

On January 24, Hamas turned down Qatari funds over Israel’s change of conditions due to the unrest along the border fence between the strip and the Israeli-occupied territories, criticizing Tel Aviv for imposing new conditions on the money entering the blockaded Palestinian territory.

“We refuse to receive the third Qatari grant in response to the (Israeli) Occupation's behavior and attempts to evade the agreement,” the deputy Hamas leader in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, told journalists at the time.

The third aid tranche had been expected to enter the Gaza Strip in late January, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked it on January 22 after an Israeli soldier was slightly injured near the fence.

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