Abbas said to cut salaries of 37 Hamas lawmakers

The Palestinian Authority cut the salaries of 37 Hamas lawmakers as part of a series of measures to get the terror group to cede control of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reports said on Sunday.

The PA finance ministry informed MPs from Hamas’s Change and Reform bloc who are living in the West Bank that they would no longer receive their salaries, First Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian parliament Ahmed Bahar, told the news site Safa.

Bahar called the measure a “declaration of war” against the Palestinian Legislative council.

The speaker of the parliament, Aziz Dweik, was among those who had their salaries cut, Bahar said. According to Palestinian law, Dweik would become Abbas’s temporary successor should the 82-year-old PA president no longer be able to continue his duties.

The Palestinian parliament has not met since 2007, following a battle between Hamas and the PA’s ruling Fatah party.

Bahar noted the PA cut the salaries of all Hamas MPs living in Gaza following the terror group’s takeover of the Strip in 2007.

Since April, in a series of measures meant to force Hamas give up control in Gaza, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has cut funds for Israeli-supplied electricity to Gaza by 35 percent, reduced by one-third the salaries of tens of thousands of PA employees in Gaza, reduced the medical budget for Gaza by a reported 90% and forced more than 6,000 PA employees Gaza into early retirement.

The Palestinian Authority argues, along with Israel, that Hamas puts taxes it collects into its own coffers and military, while Ramallah pays the bills to keep the Strip’s institutions and infrastructure running.

Abbas met Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo. The meeting was reportedly set at the request of Abbas, who wanted to understand Egypt’s role in a reported deal between Hamas and his Fatah party rival, Muhammad Dahlan.

Dahlan is a former Fatah leader and was considered a strongman in Gaza before being ousted in the 2006 coup that brought Hamas to power in the Strip. He was expelled from the Palestinian territories by Abbas in 2011.

In June, with Egyptian mediation, Dahlan and Hamas reportedly agreed to establish a new “management committee” of Gaza, which would see the Fatah strongman share control of the Palestinian enclave.

In an interview published in the Pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat on Sunday, Abbas said he would make a decision after his meetings in Cairo whether to impose “immediate financial sanctions” on Hamas’s leadership should it continue what he called “the coup on the institutions of the state of Palestine in Ramallah.”

Abbas did not make clear how he would implement the sanctions or what they would be.