On Sunday 21 July, postal banks in the Gaza Strip began to distribute payments of $100 to impoverished Palestinian families from a $10 million grant from Qatar.
100,000 families were initially intended to receive the payments of $100 each, however, a decision by Qatar reduced that number to 60,000 allocating the rest of the funds to be directed to future projects.
At the conclusion of a trip to Gaza in May, Qatari envoy who heads the Gaza Reconstruction Committee, Mohammed al-Emadi, told journalists that Qatar would continue to provide “monetary support to the poor and modest families for a period of six months.
Al-Emadi said that the funds that were supposed to be given for the remaining 40,000 families, $4 million, will instead go to “executing other sustainable projects which will be announced in the future.”
Photos posted on Safa, a Gaza-based news outlet, showed hundreds of Palestinians at the banks, waiting to collect their payment.
As reported by the United Nations in June 2018, 53 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza live in poverty despite humanitarian assistance, while 80 per cent depend on international aid.
In recent years, Qatar has provided millions of dollars into aid projects in the Gaza Strip.
An industrial zone funded by Qatar is also set to be established east of Gaza City, by the Karni crossing. The zone is projected to provide jobs to 5,000 Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip.
The project was discussed and approved during a security Cabinet meeting led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several high-ranking security officials in May.
As reported by the Jerusalem Post, sources said that the Qatari grant was only delivered due to the mediation efforts made by Egypt and the United Nations in the past few days which managed to persuade Israel to take additional measures to ease restrictions imposed on the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Egyptian intelligence officials held talks in Israel and the Gaza Strip on ways of preserving the understandings and averting an all-out military confrontation between Hamas and Israel.
According to Al-Monitor, Israel wants to alleviate Hamas retaliation promises after the Israeli army killed one of its members by mistake on 12 July.