It’s hard to predict at this stage whether Israel’s decision to allow Qatar to pay the salaries of Hamas officials in Gaza is valid for July only, or whether Doha, with Israel’s consent, will continue to pay them for the next two months.

Officially, Israel refuses to comment on the measure or publicize any information about it, even though the government should be fully transparent, especially in light of the dramatic change of direction in its policy.

The government vigorously opposed Qatar paying Hamas officials’ salaries in the summer of 2014, on the eve of the 50-day war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Avigdor Liberman, the foreign minister at the time, threatened to expel Robert Serry, the UN’s envoy to the Middle East, for trying to arrange the salary payments, and Israel rejected a proposal for a ceasefire because it would have provided for the payment of the officials. How is it possible that Israel now agrees to the very same measures?

Is it conceivable that Liberman, who promised two months ago to kill Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top official in Gaza, if the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin were not returned to Israel, is agreeing that 40,000 Hamas officials, among them Haniyeh, will receive their July salaries thanks to the Israeli government, even as Hamas continues to hold on to the bodies?

Read the full article at Times of Israel.