The Palestinian Authority informed its workers - clerks, security forces, teachers, etc. - that it does not currently have the money to pay their salaries for February. A PA senior told Itim News Agency, \"We are having trouble dealing with the destruction of infrastructures by the IDF.\" He also said that PA ministers have not received their salaries, and that the PA \"is in the worst economic crisis it has ever faced…\"
The question then follows: Where has all the international financial aid that has been granted to the PA since 1993 gone? One possible answer may be connected to the charges of personal corruption that have frequently been raised against Yasser Arafat and top PA leaders. Most recently, IDF Gen. Amos Gilad, the coordinator in Judea and Samaria, said two weeks ago that Abu Ala (Mahmoud Qurei) - whom Yasser Arafat has mentioned as his choice to succeed him as head of the Palestinian Authority - built himself a $1.5 million vacation home, and that the money came from the international aid provided to the Palestinian Authority. Gilad said that cash given by the U.S., Germany and other countries \"personally enriches PA seniors and deepens the corruption in the PA.\"