Israel financed the Palestinian Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, to weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Fatah party, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said, Euronews reports.
He complained that Israel opposes the creation of two states in the Middle East – Jewish and Arab.
“I insist that Israel, by continuing to reject this decision, has gone so far as to create Hamas itself. Yes, the Israeli government funded Hamas in an attempt to weaken the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority,” Borrell said.
In December, The New York Times (NYT) reported that Qatar had been funding Hamas for years, while Israel did not oppose the payments and even supported them. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu denied the accusations when speaking to Politico.
The NYT also wrote that among Hamas’s sources of funding were its own companies that were engaged in mining, poultry farming, construction of buildings and roads, etc. in different countries. Israeli intelligence knew about them, but the authorities did not support it in the fight against these cash flows.
The day before, January 19, Euronews reported on a 10-point plan prepared by a diplomat to resolve the conflict in the Middle East. The plan also contains a proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip to the control of the PLO.
2024-01-19 22:45:00
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