PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Photo: Reuters/Osman Orsal.

I don’t know how reliable this report is, but Al Akhbar in Lebanon is reporting that Mahmoud Abbas is drawing up plans to severely punish all Gazans if the current negotiations in Egypt between Fatah and Hamas prove fruitless.

The newspaper quoted “informed political sources” saying that Abbas has instructed his government to prepare a “full vision on stopping the financing of Gaza.” This would include freezing the salaries of employees in the ministries of social affairs, health, and education.

According to the newspaper, the sanctions would also include stopping the work of the Monetary Authority in Gaza, which means the closure of all banks in the sector; this would paralyze all commercial activities, and affect the ability of Gazans to pay for any imports.

“There are other steps that the [Palestinian Authority] is preparing to implement, including stopping the transfer of social welfare services serving more than 80,000 families from Gaza, freezing medical transfers for patients, cutting off medicines and supplies for the health sector, [and] cutting off electricity in Gaza” according to the report.

The head of Fatah’s delegation in Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmad, reportedly told Egyptian officials of Abbas’ intention to impose these new sanctions if the truce agreement fails.

Previous sanctions on Gaza by Abbas have been met with a big yawn from the international community and virtually all supposed pro-Palestinian “activists” — except for the ones aligned with Hamas.

Elder of Ziyon has been blogging about Israel and the Arab world for a really long time now. He also controls the world, but deep down you already knew that.