ABSTRACT
On the eve of the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 which brought into power a Hamas-led government, the provision of humanitarian relief and direct budgetary support to the Palestinian National Authority (PA) had come to constitute the bulk of the international funds provided to the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS). More than US$1 billion a year was being spent on the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Most was in the form of emergency assistance and constituted one of the highest and longest sustained levels of multilateral foreign aid per capita in the world.1
