Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of not spending a “fair amount” of its budget on Gaza, despite the formation of a unity government between Hamas and Fatah.
“They (the PA) take $70 million in taxes and returns from Gaza each month, and it is not true what they have claimed — that they spend 55 percent of their budget on Gaza,” Haniyeh said in a speech following the funeral of two young Gazans who died in a house fire caused by candles that were lit due to a power outage, according to the Ma’an news agency.
“Where is the nationalistic, moral, and religious responsibility taken by our brothers in Ramallah while they see our children burned because of this tragedy, the siege, and the crises?” he charged.
Haniyeh also asked why the necessary fuel material to operate Gaza’s sole power station had not been allowed into the Strip.
“There are those who want to throw Gaza in the sea — unfortunately not just our enemies but our own people,” he claimed.
The remarks are just the latest in a series of signs that the Hamas-Fatah government, formed last year after years of tension due to Hamas’s bloody takeover of Gaza in 2007, is slowly crumbling.
The most recent reconciliation attempt has been rocked by tensions, most notably Hamas’s attempt to stage a violent coup in Judea and Samaria against the PA.
Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said last month that the six-month mandate of the unity government agreed on in April and established in June had ended.
He added that “national dialogue and consensus” should decide whether to break apart the government or change its members, adding Hamas “isn’t interested in incitement, but rather seeks to maintain national unity.”
Two weeks before that, the head of Hamas’s politburo, Khaled Mashaal, said that the Palestinian reconciliation “scene” was not satisfying.
Last week, Hamas criticized PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s application to join the International Criminal Court and several other international conventions and treaties, saying Abbas does not have the authority to make such decisions on his own and that they must be approved by the entire Palestinian parliament.
