PA’s Abbas may cut salary payments to Gaza Strip

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warns he will take “unprecedented steps” to end the political division between his West Bank-based autonomy government and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Speaking to Palestinian diplomats in Bahrain on Wednesday, he says of the divide, “These days, we are in a dangerous and tough situation that requires decisive steps, and we are [ready] to take these decisive steps. Therefore, we are going to take unprecedented steps in the coming days to end the division,” he is quoted as saying by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Abbas does not explain, but could try to use financial pressure to extract concessions from Hamas, which seized Gaza from his Palestinian Authority in 2007.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum says Thursday that “the language of threats and dictating orders” would not be accepted.

The escalating rhetoric comes ahead of a planned meeting between Abbas and US President Donald Trump that will likely focus on a possible resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations about Palestinian statehood. No date has been set, but a Palestinian advance team heads to Washington later this month.

Abbas may be threatening to stop paying some 60,000 salaries to non-working PA employees in Gaza, funds intended to ensure continued loyalty to Abbas in the Strip, but which have inadvertently propped up the economy under Hamas.

— AP