Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to withhold the monthly transfer of Palestinian tax revenues, totaling some 400 million shekels, for the second month is piracy and theft, Palestinian movement Fatah said.
The total amount of tax returns frozen by Israel is estimated at over one million shekels after it withheld the transfer of $127 million in January in retaliation of the Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court, Fatah spokesman Ossama al Qawasmy told MENA.
Qawasmy called for a wide scale boycott of Israeli products in response to this theft and the resumption of settlement expansion.
The tax revenues are critical to running the Palestinian Authority and paying public sector salaries. Israel took a similar step in December 2012, freezing revenue transfers for three months in anger at the Palestinians' launch of a campaign for recognition of statehood at the United Nations.