By Ola Atallah and Mohamed Majed
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – The Qatari government will pay the July salaries of civil servants in the Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run government, a Qatari diplomat said Tuesday.
“The Qatari grant for the [Gaza civil servants’] salaries, valued at $31 million, will be paid out one time only,” Amb. Mohamed al-Emadi, head of Qatar’s National Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, said at a press conference.
The payment, he noted, would be dispersed via the UN and would not apply to salaries owed to Gaza’s security forces.
Instructions to pay last month’s salaries for Gaza’s Hamas-appointed civil servants were issued directly by the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
Gaza’s embattled Hamas-run government continues to face a dire financial crisis that has prevented it from regularly paying the salaries of most of its employees.
At Tuesday’s press conference, al-Emadi said he had received a list including the names of more than 23,800 civil servants in Gaza who met the requirements of the grant.
Last week, the Qatari ambassador arrived in Gaza City, where he is expected to sign a number of reconstruction projects worth a total of $40 million.
