A new import tax imposed by Hamas on commodities entering the Gaza Strip has local merchants fuming, with some threatening to stop importing food products into the Hamas-controlled Strip altogether.
On Saturday, members of Hamas’s parliamentary bloc Change and Reform approved the National Solidarity Tax law, imposing a new levy on “non-basic” commodities such as meat, fruits and vegetables, clothing, and electronics. Flour and medicine will be exempt from the new tax, Hamas parliament member Ahmad Abu Halbiya tells Turkey’s Anadolu news agency.
Abu Halbiya acknowledges that Hamas’s 40,000 employees will be the main recipients of the new tax revenue.
A truck loaded with goods enters the Gaza Strip from Israel through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, March 15, 2015. (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
“The civil servants of Gaza haven’t received regular salaries in over a year,” he says. “The Strip cannot function without civil servants, who are the pillar of every state.”
Yet the Gaza merchants remain unconvinced.
“These cost three and a half shekels,” says one merchant in a video report by al-Quds, holding up a pair of slippers he imports. “You want to tax it two shekels? That makes no sense. Make it one or two agorot!”
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