Armed groups stole 66 million euros from the banking institution "Bank of Palestine", writes the French edition "Mond". This happened in the middle of last month.
The publication has obtained access to a document handed over by the "Bank of Palestine" of some international partners, which describes spectacular robberies carried out in the main bank branch in Gaza City, BTA specifies.
On April 16, officials found that a hole had been drilled in the ceiling of the room with the safes and an amount in Israeli shekels equal to 2.8 million euros had been stolen. In this robbery, the thieves took directly the cash registers intended for filling the ATMs.
The very next day, armed groups with explosives returned to the bank branch again and blew up a cement safe that had been poured the day before to protect the money. They stole three cash registers, which contained money in different currencies, amounting to 29 million euros.
The following day, a second branch of the bank was attacked by a group of armed men who claimed to be representatives of the highest authorities in Gaza, a wording used to refer to "Hamas". The armed men left the bank branch with Israeli shekels worth 33.6 million euros.
In addition, the Israeli army confiscated a large sum of money in the enclave that belonged to the "Bank of Palestine", according to information from "Mond". The French edition also cited Israeli media, which reported in February that the confiscated amount amounted to several tens of millions of dollars and that this operation was aimed at preventing "Hamas" to lay his hands on this money.
The French newspaper also describes the difficulties that the "Bank of Palestine" to hide his money and the difficulty for Gazans to get hold of cash.
In the Gaza Strip, only two ATMs worked - in Rafah and Deir al-Balah, in the southern part of the enclave, and that when there was electricity there. In addition, armed men waited for people withdrawing money from ATMs and extorted them for a percentage of the withdrawn amount. This was seen on the ATM cameras, writes "Mond".
/YYYY/
Source: www.bta.bg