| All because Hamas insists on spending its funds on terror tunnels and rockets instead of doing all those things responsible governments do with their money. |
Sameh al-Madhoun’s eyes fill with tears as he recalls his fall from successful businessman to prisoner in a Hamas jail in Gazoo.
Once the owner of a flourishing car dealership, he is one of more than 40,000 Gazooks charged in the last year with failing to keep up debt payments as the economy in the Paleostinian enclave collapses.
Madhoun, a 40-year-old father of four, has sold most of his possessions, including his house and some of his cars, in a bid to pay back the $3 million debt that dragged his business into bankruptcy.
"I have paid off half of it until now. I don’t know how I will pay off the rest," he told AFP from his jail cell.
"I don’t own anything else now except these debts."
A decade-long blockade by Egypt and Israel ‐ which Israel maintains in order to prevent Gazoo’s Hamas terrorist rulers from importing weaponry ‐ and a dispute between Hamas and the West Bank-based Paleostinian Authority have brought the coastal territory’s economy to its knees.
Some 42,500 people were placed in debtors' prison
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
in the past year for failing to pay debtors, according to Hamas police.
At least 600 are currently in debtors' prison on similar charges.
Madhoun has been detained since September, but is allowed to leave two days a week to see his young children and search for the money to pay back his debtors.
AFP met him both in debtors' prison, after being granted access by Hamas, and during one of his leave days at his former company ‐ now just a few cars gathering dust.
"The market collapsed. Even though prices fell there were no customers," Madhoun said.
"If it continues all the businesses in Gazoo will fail."
Economy ’all but dead’
| And whose fault is that? |
As Gazooks’ buying power has collapsed, the amount of goods being imported into the Strip has more than halved in just seven months, according to border officials.
Tabba said some $112 million worth of checks bounced in 2017, up from $62 million in 2016. That, he said, is "clear evidence of an economic collapse."
Tabba estimates that several hundred of those currently in debtors' prison are owners of struggling or failed businesses.
In an attempt to contain the crisis, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Gazoo recently announced it would give people an extra month to find the money to service their debts.
Much of the world has dropped the policy of imprisoning debtors, but in Gazoo it is still common.
With the help of Egypt, Israel has maintained a blockade of Gazoo since 2007, which it says is necessary to isolate Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since 2008. Hamas ‐ the Islamist terror group which seized control of Gazoo in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew its entire military and civilian presence from the Strip ‐ is openly committed to the destruction of Israel.
Rights groups and UN officials say the blockade amounts to collective punishment and strangles the economy in the enclave, where unemployment is around 40 percent.
But the Paleostinian Authority has also sought in recent months to harm Hamas by damaging Gazoo’s economy, including by cutting the salaries it still pays to civil servants there despite Hamas taking over the territory in 2007.
Hamas has also largely stopped paying civil servants after an attempted reconciliation with the Fatah movement of president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...stalled.
Several hurt in reported training accident at Hamas facility in Gaza
[IsraelTimes] Several people are said hurt in a training accident at a Hamas training facility in the Gaza Strip, according to media reports in Gaza cited by Hebrew-language media this evening. The facility is located at the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City.
There are no reports of deaths. According to the Walla news site, Hamas is refusing to publicize any details about the incident.
Islamic Jihad member killed in accidental explosion in northern Gaza
[IsraelTimes] A 20-year-old Palestinian Islamic Jihad member was killed in an accidental explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Health Ministry there said Saturday.
Ibrahim Fathi Farahat is said to have been working with explosives. Two other Palestinians were injured.
The blast was apparently caused by a work accident as the explosives were being prepared, the Ynet news site reported.
Several Hamas and PIJ operatives have been killed or injured in accidental blasts and tunnel collapses in recent months.