After seven months of payment freezes, Egypt and Qatar agreed Monday on a system to pay salaries to public personnel in the besieged Gaza Strip.
A deal “began taking shape” in November, according to sources who briefed on the conclusion of negotiations between Qatar, Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian group Hamas, which administers Gaza.
A new deal will allow Qatar to indirectly fund Hamas-run government personnel by purchasing fuel from Egypt. The fuel would subsequently be sent to Hamas via Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza, and Hamas would utilize the proceeds from the sale of the fuel to pay government officials’ wages.
Monthly pays are expected to be in the $10 million.
Since the 2018 Great March of Return, Qatar has contributed hundreds of millions of cash to Gaza’s poorest households, equivalent to almost $30 million every month.
Following Israel’s recent war in May, however, the payments were halted for many months as the Israeli government maintained that channels for aid into Gaza needed to be ensured so that it did not reach Hamas.
Qatar and Israel, on the other hand, established a deal in August to restore relief payments to thousands of Gazan families.
