The million$ of Hama$

In case you were wondering who can afford all those fancy restaurants and shopping malls in Gaza - and how - Maariv discovered over the weekend that Hamas has actually becomequite wealthy.

The Hamas government income has increased 13-fold over the past five years of "blockade". Hamas pays salaries of 40,000 employees, of whom 21,000 are armed personnel a sum they estimate at $250,000,000 annually. Hamas claims to expend $30,000,000 each year of activities in eastern Jerusalem.

The PA banking system transfers $1,800,000,000 to Gaza each year since 2007. Iran donates $100,000,000.

The piece, as far as I can read, doesn't provide a final sum and the numbers in the chart represent percentages. But they assert that Hamas has circumvented all attempts to restrict its financial activity and the economic status of the Gaza Strip is not at all critical and in fact, relatively the opposite.

Read the whole thing and look at the pie graph. For those who can read Hebrew (I can but don't have the time to translate today), the full article ishere. If it gets translated into English, I will try to reblog it.

Under siege? You've got to be kidding.