Analysis: Hamas Fights Chaos, Cash Crunch
Council on Foreign Relations
Updated: April 24, 2006
Prepared by: Esther Pan
In a sign of the continuing strains beween President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and ruling party Hamas, rival gunmen clashed at the Palestinian health ministry, leaving three wounded (BBC). Fatah and Hamas supporters also confronted each other at demonstrations in Gaza (al-Jazeera) as tension grows between the two factions. After Hamas tried to appoint militant leader Jamal Abu Samhadana as head of a new security force, Abbas blocked the decision (BBC). The two sides also offered vastly different reactions after an April 17 suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv killed nine Israelis and wounded more than sixty (LAT). Hamas officials defended the attack, calling it "justified," while Abbas condemned it as the slaughter of innocents (CNN).
Hamas' recalcitrance in the face of international pressure to give up violence has exacted a very high toll on ordinary Palestinians. The Palestinian territories are in disarray (LAT), and the PA is experiencing a severe cash crunch after the European Union (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) and the United States cut off their aid flows. The United States is also pressuring international banks not to transfer funds from other sources to the PA (al-Jazeera). The PA government's financial straits are analyzed in this CFR Background Q&A. The more than $600 million in aid from the EU and more than $400 million from the United States made up the lion's share of the PA's operating budget. The State Department offers a breakdown of where the U.S. funds went.
Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.
Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.
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