Israel has approved new payments of more than $140 million to the Palestinian Authority after it announced it would also unwind some funds blocked because of the Gaza war, a finance ministry spokesman told AFP on Thursday.
Since the war on Hamas began, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has withheld payments of customs duties and taxes to the administration of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
But Israeli officials said on Wednesday that the government had paid 435 million shekels ($116 million) in fees collected for April and May.
A Finance Ministry spokeswoman said an additional payment of about 530 million shekels in fees collected for the month of June had been approved.
Israel collects taxes and customs duties for the Palestinian Authority under a 1994 protocol that gives Israel sole control over the territories’ boundaries.
According to economists, payments collected by Israel account for 60 percent of the cash-strapped authority’s revenue.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa confirmed the 435 million shekel payment at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
He said the money would be used to pay the unpaid salaries of thousands of Palestinian civil servants and suppliers.
The authority’s employees have been living on low wages for months and the PA has repeatedly appealed for international aid.
Mustafa said Israel still owed the authority six billion shekels.
Israel stopped making payments after Hamas attacks in southern Israel on 7 October, with Smotrich accusing the PA of supporting Islamist militants.
Hamas is designated a “terrorist” organisation by the United States, the European Union and other countries. It is separate from the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 after a violent conflict with Abbas’s Fatah faction, and the Palestinian Authority’s influence is limited to Palestinian-ruled parts of the occupied West Bank.
According to Israeli media reports, Smotrich only agreed to make the new payments under a deal under which the government recognized five illegal settlements in the West Bank.
In June, he ordered about $35 million in funds collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to be transferred to help Israeli “victims of terrorism.” The US government condemned the decision as “extremely wrong.”
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