Palestinian, Zionist Finance Ministers Meet Over Tax Revenues

Date: 16 March 2020 - 22:12

News ID: ۷۷۱۵۷

RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – Palestinian Minister of Finance Shukri Bishara has met with his Zionist counterpart Moshe Kahlon in al-Quds over the Palestinian tax revenues withheld by the Zionist regime and the economic impacts of COVID-19 outbreak.
According to a statement by the Palestinian Finance Ministry, Bishara demanded that the Zionist regime release all Palestinian revenues withheld by regime since last year, in light of the increasing financial difficulties under the outbreak of the COVID-19.
"The withheld revenues are a right of the Palestinian people and would help the state treasury undertake the best health measures to fight the coronavirus,” said the statement.
The Zionist regime has been withholding the money it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
The West Bank has been under a state of emergency since March 5, after the outbreak of the deadly virus in the city of Bethlehem.
In early July 2018, the regime’s parliament (Knesset) passed a bill to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in funds from the Palestinians over welfare payments given to prisoners and their families.
Tel Aviv in February 2019 invoked a law to deduce tax revenues relative to the amounts the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority pays to the Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails or the families of those killed by the Israeli military.
At the time, several senior Palestinian officials condemned the decision, which they described as "piracy and an illegal economic aggression.”
The stipends benefit roughly 35,000 families of the Palestinians killed and wounded by the Zionist. The PA says the payments are a form of welfare stipend to the families who have lost their main breadwinner.