Israel has transferred $100 million in withheld revenues to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had agreed to the transfer during a meeting with Abbas in December 2006.
The Jewish state had begun withholding about $50 million monthly in taxes and customs duties in 2006 after the militant Hamas movement took control of the Palestinian government following elections.
Israel described the funds transfer as part of an effort to boost the weakened Abbas, a relatively moderate leader belonging to Fatah, the main rival of Hamas.
The $100 million represents less than one-third of the money Israel has collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and refused to part with.
Israeli officials said the money was being channeled to Abbas' office rather than to any ministry of the Palestinian Authority in order to sustain an aid embargo against Hamas, which Israel and much of the West consider a terrorist group.
"The money is not meant to go to the Hamas-controlled government. It is to support the Palestinian people, and Abbas will be distributing it," a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry stressed.
Palestinian officials said the funds would help them pay companies that supply hospitals, schools and farms.
The transfer, one of several modest concessions promised by Olmert during the December 23, 2006, summit, could help the Palestinian leader in his political standoff with Hamas.
Even after many months of negotiations, Fatah and Hamas have not agreed on terms of a power-sharing arrangement that would break the West's aid embargo.
Abbas is soon meeting Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas political leader, in Damascus, Syria, in a fresh bid to break the months-long impasse.
Abbas had earlier announced that talks with Hamas were reaching nowhere and that he would call early elections for the presidency and parliament. But mediators continued to coax the two sides into agreeing on a joint government under terms that could satisfy the West.
Past talks between Fatah and Hamas had got deadlocked over the distribution of ministerial posts as well as Hamas' refusal to recognise the nation of Israel. Western nations demand that the Palestinian government accept Israel's right to exist, shun violence and agree to abide by past Israeli-Palestinian accords.
In another development, Israel's Defence Minister Amir Peretz froze a plan to build new housing for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The proposal for about new 100 homes had drawn international criticism as also protests from Palestinian officials and Israeli advocates of peace.Labels: International Politics |
