Palestinian officials said that Qatari Ambassador Mohammad al-Emadi, who heads the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, is working to achieve the implementation of an agreement with Egypt and Israel on the salaries of Hamas government employees in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Emadi is visiting the Gaza Strip to meet with Hamas and Israeli officials to finalize the agreement on supplying fuel and basic building materials for the area, which will resolve the salary crisis for Hamas government employees.

In this regard, the head of the government media office in the Gaza Strip, Salameh Maarouf, said the Qatari-Egyptian agreement was ready, adding that the relevant authorities in the Gaza Strip were waiting for the start of the fuel pumping operations.

“Qatar will pay the value of the monthly grant to Gaza employees, which ranges between seven and ten million dollars in the form of fuel that will be delivered through the Rafah crossing, and then sold in the markets, provided that the money will be supplied to the treasury of the Ministry of Finance, which will be paid later for the benefit of the employees,” the Palestinian official said.

The move came a few days after Israeli sources confirmed an expected breakthrough in the file, after long months of dispute over the matter.

The sources revealed intensive efforts in Israel, Egypt and Qatar to reach an agreement on the mechanism for paying the salary grant to tens of thousands of employees in Gaza, in a move aimed at maintaining calm and delaying any possible escalation with the Gaza Strip.

Since the last escalation in May, Qatar has paid twice a financial grant to 95,000 families in the Gaza Strip (USD 100 per family), after a long pause due to Israeli objections and Tel Aviv’s insistence on finding a new mechanism, which was finally reached in agreement with the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations.

Qatar distributed the funds through the United Nations and via specific distribution centers in the governorates of the Gaza Strip.