Abbas takes responsibility over stopping the transfer of money to the Gaza strip

Official PA TV, live broadcast of a speech by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas from the PA headquarters to the Palestinian leadership and members of a visiting delegation from Jerusalem

Abbas speaks about how much the PA has been paying to Gaza, and how he decided to gradually stop the transfer of money due to the collapse of negotiations and Hamas forming an independent government in Gaza –Ed.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "The whole world – and this is what surprises me – the whole world has asked me why the electricity to Gaza was stopped. I’ve said to them: Is the story just the electricity? O my brothers, the story is that there is cause and effect. The cause is the [PA] government and the effect is the stopping [of the electricity]…

The states of the world come to us – and this is not a secret, the US [too, and they ask us]: 'Why are you doing this (i.e., stopping the transfer of money and causing the electricity outage in Gaza)?’ Why is this any of your business? Why are you interfering? He (i.e., US President Donald Trump or his envoys) said to me: 'This cannot be.' I said to him: 'If that’s the case, you pay.'"

[Official PA TV, Aug. 5, 2017]