[ 07/03/2010 - 10:40 AM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- The Ramallah-based authority under Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has decided to close social welfare charities in the besieged Gaza Strip after it sealed them in the West Bank on US and Israeli orders, local sources asserted.
According to the sources, hundreds of Palestinian workers and volunteers in those charities were arrested and detained in Abbas’s jails in the West Bank on allegations they were sympathizing with Hamas Movement.
They opined that the Ramallah plan was to seal off all the remaining charities in the Gaza Strip, which caters for orphans, needy, and poor Palestinian families already suffering from the tightened Israeli siege imposed on them nearly four years ago in a bid to weaken Hamas’s popularity among the Palestinian people because it was the one who started the social welfare activities in occupied Palestine even before the PA was established.
Furthermore, the sources pointed out that based on instructions from the USA and the EU, local banks were banned from from dealing with those societies if the Fatah-controlled PA fund doesn’t recommend them as “not affiliated with Hamas”.
They said that Fatah’s official Shaker Zeyara, who is in charge of the charities file in the Ramallah authority, scrutinizes every application for financial support submitted by the charities to the donors before he classifies them as “good” societies if they were controlled by Fatah affiliated or leftist members, or “bad” societies if they were close to Hamas Movement.
Of the affected societies was the Khaleej educational society that lost 30,000 US dollars after the Ramallah authority froze its assets and cancelled many projects it was carrying out to help tens of poor Palestinian families.
Sources in the charity asserted that officials in the Ramallah authority called them after the closure and asked them to change all its governers thought to be affiliated with Hamas by others “preferably” affiliated with Fatah.
However, legal consultants described the PA closure of the charities as illegal that has no leg to stand on in PA constitution, urging the affected charities to file cases against the PA authority in Ramallah after assuring them they would win the cases.
For his part, Ehab Al-Ghusain, the spokesman of the PA interior ministry in Gaza, said that the Ramallah authority has turned itself into a police authority to protect the security of the Israeli occupation, and that it wasn’t only chasing armed resistance but also the charitable and social welfare and cultural works in occupied Palestine.
“Such behavior isn’t strange for an authority that accepts to serve the Israeli occupation at the expense of its own Palestinian people”, Ghusain underlined, stressing that such behavior wouldn’t help Fatah faction and would push the Palestinian people to hate it further.
Nevertheless, Dr. Ahmad Al-Kurd, the social welfare minister in the legitimate PA government in the Gaza Strip, called on Fatah faction to stop chasing those charities because they are helping in alleviating the suffering of thousands of Palestinian families.
He also urged Fatah not to let Palestinian orphans and poor families pay for any political dispute with Hamas Movement, stressing that charities must be spared any political wrangling.
In a related matter, the “unconstitutional” government of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah dismissed nearly 500 Palestinian employees last month for refusing orders from Ramallah to stop working for Palestinian people in Gaza Strip while controlled by Hamas Movement.
“We vehemently reject such extortion policy of Fayyad government that comes while the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip suffer harsh living conditions due the Israeli siege”, underscored Mohammed Siyam, the head of the Palestinian public workers syndicate.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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