The Palestinian Authority (PA) will stop sending and receiving international mail beginning next month, a Palestinian minister has warned, asserting that Israel has failed to implement a 2008 agreement that would let the PA to have direct postal relations with the rest of the world.
Speaking to journalists in Ramallah on Tuesday, Communications Minister Mashhour Abu-Daqqa charged that Israel is deliberately disrupting Palestinian mail services, causing Palestinian postal services losses of over $200,000 a month. Israel’s failure to comply with tax deduction and clearing mechanisms has shaken the confidence of Palestinians in their postal services, he told the Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah,
The PA manages its own postal services and has issued postage stamps since 1995, but all mail to and from the Palestinian-ruled West Bank and Gaza Strip passes through Israel. In 2008, the two sides pledged to work to facilitate direct mail exchanges for Palestine through Amman, Jordan.
The demand for direct mail services is part of a larger tangle between the PA and Israel over the status of Palestinian-ruled areas. The PA has won recognition from a handful of Latin American countries and a seal of approval for its government institutions as statehood-ready from the United Nations and other global bodies.
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