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Jewish settlers on Friday morning vandalized Palestinian buildings and vehicles in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Salfit, according to a Palestinian activist.
Activist Wissam al-Dik told Anadolu Agency that a group of settlers had entered the city’s Kafr al-Dik district at dawn, where they spray-painted racist slogans in Hebrew -- including “Death to the Arabs” -- on walls and vehicles before leaving the area.
Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank are frequently targeted by extremist Jewish settlers.
Civil servants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip have begun receiving financial aid provided by Qatar.Since the early hours of Friday, hundreds of public-sector employees have gathered outside post offices throughout the strip to receive the long-awaited financial allocations.In a Friday statement, Gaza's Finance Ministry said civil servants would receive roughly 60 percent of their monthly salaries -- the most they have received in more than two years.Hamas usually disburses 40 percent of Gaza civil servants’ salaries every two months.Hamas contacts Egypt officials over fisherman’s murderAfter Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from rival Palestinian faction Fatah in 2007, it appointed roughly 40,000 new government employees to manage the coastal enclave.The public-sector salary file is one of several issues that served to derail a recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal after the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority refused to pay the salaries of Gaza’s Hamas-appointed civil servants.In October of last year, the two factions signed a landmark reconciliation agreement in Cairo aimed at ending years of animosity.The agreement, however, failed to bear fruit due to ongoing differences -- both political and ideological -- between the two movements.Erekat slams Israel decision to funnel PA taxes to Gaza
Hamas-appointed civil servants get salaries from Qatar
Around 650,000 Israelis currently live in more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, when Israel occupied both areas.
International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement building activity there as illegal.
The Palestinians want both these territories -- along with the Gaza Strip -- for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.