Gaza Government Dissolves Board of the Palestine Investment Fund and the Palestine Investment Bank

At approximately 12:30pm on Wednesday, 2 March 2011, three men dressed in civilian clothes appeared at the Palestine Investment Bank and identified themselves as from the police.
The bank is located in Mushtaha Tower opposite the governmental ministries compound in Gaza City.
They had checks from the Palestinian Investment Fund and wanted to withdraw the money.
The bank declined the demand, claiming that there were no balances in the account for the checks.
The men then left the bank.
Thirty minutes later, one of the men went to the bank accompanied by police officers.
They informed the bank's administration that they wanted to immediately withdraw the money.
The bank's administration declined and started to negotiate with them.
At the same time, the bank's administration was communicating with the Palestinian Monetary Fund in Ramallah.
  According to Mohammed Al Manassra, Deputy Director of the Inspection and Monitoring Department at the Palestinian Monetary Fund, he talked via telephone to the police officer who identified himself from the Al Abbas police station in Gaza city.
Al Manassra told the police officer that overdraft checks are a violation of Palestinian law.
The police officer said that he was just doing his job and that he was following instructions.
The police stayed in the bank until 4pm that same day.
Al Manassra stated that the police then 'confiscated' what was equivalent to US$250,000, in USD, JD, and NIS and left the Bank.
Al Manassra added that this act broke the law and if repeated, the Gaza Strip would suffer a real monetary crisis and that the Israeli authorities would probably use this act as an excuse to stop or reduce the amount of money allowed into the Gaza Strip.
  He said that the bank's Boards of Directors would have to find a solution for this crisis as well as similar crises.
Other banks threatened to shut down in protest of such acts.
  Ehab Al Ghusein, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior in Gaza, said that one week ago the Gaza Government had decided to dissolve the Palestinian Investment Fund's Board of Directors.
He also added that the confiscated money was given to the new board.
The Director of the fund and the former board were informed of this decision and the bank handed the new board the sum of money last week.
The bank's administration issued checks for the new board to be withdrawn on Wednesday 2 March 2011.
When the new board went to withdraw the money, the bank's administration said that the money was transferred to Ramallah.
The new board insisted on taking the money and the bank gave them part of the checks' value.
The bank promised the new board to give them the rest of the money in the morning hours on Thursday 3 March 2011.
Al Ghusein said that the Ministry did not receive any complaint regarding this act.
  The Monetary Fund Authority in Ramallah and the spokesperson from the Ministry of Interior in Gaza are the only source of information related to this incident.
Al Mezan tried to contact the bank's administration in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to get more information, but they refused.
Al Mezan's field worker was not able to get information from Mr.
Nabil Yousif Az-Zaeem, the Director of the Palestinian Monetary Fund.