Palestinian teachers "intend to hold activities of escalation, likely to reach the point of a protest" after the PA refuses to pay their full salaries
Headline: “The General Union of [Palestinian] Teachers to Al-Quds: We are likely to turn to an escalation and protest in the street if our demands are not met”
“General Secretariat member of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT) Anan Da’na told Al-Quds yesterday [April 6, 2022] that the union intends to hold activities of escalation aside from ‘a partial strike’ of the school day, which are likely to reach the point of a protest in the street. This is in order to demand that the [PA] government pay the teachers’ salaries in full…
Starting two days ago, the GUPT returned to escalation and the partial strike, approximately 10 days after it suspended a similar strike that had taken place for approximately a month…
The suspension did not last long, due to the [PA] Ministry of Finance’s announcement on Sunday that the salaries of this March [2022] will not be paid in full. Due to this, the GUPT announced the renewal of its measures…
Da’na noted that the GUPT emphasized in the past to the government that it is impossible that in the future the salaries will be deducted if the financial crisis continues. He said: ‘Our demand is clear – receiving salaries regularly and their payment in full without harming them. The government must find solutions for the matter without deducting the salaries.’ …
It should be noted that the Palestinian government did not succeed in paying the salaries of its [public] employees in full… because ‘Israel is continuing to deduct part of the tax money as a punishment for the allowances that the PA is giving to the prisoners, their families, the Martyrs’ [families], and the wounded’ (refers to Israel’s Anti “Pay-for-Slay” Law to deduct PA terror salaries; see note below -Ed.).”
Israel's Anti "Pay-for-Slay" Law - Israeli law stating that the PA payments to terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is a financial incentive to terror. The law instructs the state to deduct and freeze the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of "Martyrs" from the tax money Israel collects for the PA. Should the PA stop these payments for a full year, the Israeli government would have the option of giving all or part of the frozen money to the PA. The law was enacted by the Israeli Parliament on July 2, 2018. During the parliamentary vote, the law's sponsor Avi Dichter said: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee received much help in its deliberations... from Palestinian Media Watch who provided us with authentic data that enabled productive and professional deliberations, nuances that are very difficult to achieve without precise data.” [Israeli Parliament website, July 2, 2018] In accordance with the law, as of September 2021 Israel’s Security Cabinet had ordered the freeze of 1.857 billion shekels ($580.15 million) - the sum equivalent to the PA payments to terrorists in 2018, 2019, and 2020.