Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed on Monday that the Palestinian Authority pays salaries to Gazans who manage the Rafah Crossing with Egypt, contradicting earlier claims by Jerusalem that Ramallah was not involved in the terminal’s day-to-day operation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and government ministers “were surprised that the P.A. is paying the salaries of the Palestinians who are operating the Rafah Crossing during the ceasefire,” Smotrich said in response to a question from the Israel Hayom daily on Monday.
According to Smotrich, the Israel Defense Forces and the security establishment “did not tell us the truth, and said it wasn’t the P.A.”
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem declined to comment on the matter.
Last month, PMO spokesman Omer Dostri said that the P.A. was not involved in the operation of the crossing “despite the narrative it is trying to create.”
“The P.A.'s only involvement is its stamp on passports, which, according to the existing international arrangement, is the only way Gazans may leave the Strip in order to enter, or be received in, other countries,” Netanyahu’s spokesman added, echoing a Jan. 22 PMO statement.
Dostri’s denial came after Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported that despite Jerusalem’s insistence that Ramallah played no role in managing the Gaza crossing, senior P.A. officials had been stationed at Rafah since it was reopened as part of the hostage deal with the Hamas terrorist group.
The Palestinian Authority force reportedly includes nine police officers who previously worked on behalf of Ramallah at Gaza’s various border crossings and have now returned to work in their previous positions.
Setting Jerusalem’s “red lines” in the hostage talks in July, Netanyahu said the Israeli government under his leadership would “not allow the smuggling of weapons to Hamas from Egypt, first and foremost through Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah Crossing.”
Israel might consider a withdrawal from the area as part of a truce deal with Hamas if a viable alternative can be found to prevent the terrorist group from rearming itself through tunnels, he subsequently stated.
