With Israel withholding around $200 million of the Palestinian tax funds this month preventing the Palestinian Authority (PA) from paying the October salary for its 140,000 public employees, the Finance Ministry and Palestinian Monetary Authority announced today that only 50 percent of the October salary will be disbursed on Wednesday, a whole month late.

They said in a joint statement that the Finance Ministry will bear the cost that will result from this payment for the salaries, which they described as an ‘advance.’

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister refused early this month to release a large part of the PA’s tax funds collected by Israel on goods imported to the Palestinian territories claiming the deducted part goes for Gaza and as a result the PA refused to accept the reduced transferred amount which prevented it from paying the October salary to its employees.

Source: Palestine news and Information Agency – WAFA