The Palestine Monetary Authority, the institution acting as the Central Bank, said that Israel is targeting the financial sector in Palestine, as part of a plan to blockade the Palestinian economy.
This came in a statement by the Monetary Authority issued today, Thursday, hours after the Israeli occupation army stormed an exchange shop in the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank.
She added, “The repeated targeting by the Israeli occupation forces of exchange shops subject to its supervision and control, and of their workers, comes in the context of a campaign to strike the financial sector in Palestine as part of a broader plan to strangle the national economy.”
She said that she rejects “any flimsy pretexts put forward by the occupation authorities to justify the repeated raids on the headquarters of exchange companies, the most recent of which was the raid on exchange shops in the city of Al-Bireh, last night.”
It reiterated that “all sectors subject to its supervision and control are subject to strict compliance standards that are consistent with best international practices.”
She added that she is working with relevant international bodies to demonstrate the seriousness of these practices and their negative effects on the economy, especially in light of the current extremely complex and difficult circumstances.
At dawn on Thursday, eyewitnesses said that the occupation army stormed an exchange shop in Ramallah and confiscated its property.
The army announced, through a statement posted at the entrance to the store, that it had been closed under the pretext of “transferring funds to terrorist parties.”
On May 16, the occupation army raided money exchange shops in 7 cities in the West Bank, according to local Palestinian sources.
During recent months, the Israeli occupation deliberately stormed and vandalized exchange companies in the West Bank, and confiscated their money, causing losses worth millions of dollars, which insurance companies did not compensate for.
Since the re-invasion of the West Bank, the occupation has not stopped raiding and storming money exchange shops under the pretext of using them by Palestinian factions, specifically the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), to receive money from abroad, which the shop owners deny, as they say that they are subject to a strict financial system.
The raids included several money exchange shops in various cities of the West Bank, and the raid was accompanied by the confiscation of millions of shekels (one dollar equals 3.62 shekels) and the arrest of dozens of owners and workers of these companies, according to the occupation army.
What is the goal?
In a previous interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, political analyst Sari Orabi explained, “The occupation could have contented itself with announcing the confiscation as in previous times, but this time the announcement was accompanied by a media parade and the storming of all West Bank cities at the same time, and behind that were two messages,” the first directed to Israeli society. That the security and political establishment exists, is present, and effective, while the second message is to put pressure on the economically besieged Palestinian community.
He pointed out that the raid on exchange companies aims to confirm that the occupation is besieging the interests and sources of the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, which has been preventing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from working within the Green Line for 8 months.
He added that the occupation wants the Palestinian community to feel its presence “within a policy that also includes closing barriers and roads, isolating areas from each other, and increasing the number of martyrs and detainees in an unprecedented manner.”
He added that the most important goal of the occupation is to “prevent the Palestinians of the West Bank from significantly engaging in any act of struggle.”
In addition to the previous messages, Orabi says that there is a message to the authority, which is being talked about reforming and rehabilitating according to Israeli and American standards, that “the occupation exists.”