Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Palestinians Aim To Ease Hardship Amid Protests

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad announced measures to ease economic hardship following stepped up Palestinian protests in the West Bank.

Fayad on Tuesday announced that the value added tax will be reduced by two percent to 15 percent and he lowered prices on diesel, gas and kerosene, following a meeting with ministers to discuss ways to solve the economic crisis, the Palestinian Ma’an news service reported.

Palestinian protests in the West Bank turned violent and destructive late on Monday, with thousands of protesters burning tires and attacking police in the streets of Hebron and Nablus. Protesters also reportedly smashed the windows of the municipal building and a police station in Hebron.

Also in Hebron, protesters threw shoes at a life-size poster of Fayad. Throwing shoes is a sign of disrespect in the Arab world.

Palestinian taxi, truck and bus drivers also staged a one-day strike on Monday.

Civil servants did not receive paychecks for the month of August. Fayad said they would receive half of their salaries Wednesday and the rest by the end of the week.

Israeli officials are concerned that the unrest over economics and frustration with the Palestinian leadership could turn into a third Intifada directed at Israel, Reuters reported.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.