CAIRO: The Arab League has pledged to pay $100 million a month to the Palestinian Authority to plug the gap left when Israel blocked tax transfers earlier in the year.
“We confirm that Arab countries will support the Palestinian state’s budget... (to) resist the political and financial pressure it faces,” the League said Sunday following a meeting in Cairo.
Israel collects taxes on behalf of the PA, but withheld $138 million in transfers in February over Palestinian payments to political prisoners jailed for attacks against Israelis.
The Arab League’s move comes as the Trump administration prepares to unveil a much-touted “Deal of the Century” for peace between the Palestinians and Israel in the coming months.
The Palestinian leadership, which has boycotted Washington over a series of moves including recognizing the bitterly disputed city of Jerusalem as capital of Israel, says it can no longer trust the United States as a broker.
The Arab League said the deal “will not succeed in achieving long-lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East.”
The peace plan is being developed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose close ties to right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have heightened Palestinian suspicions.
Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Arab League pledges $100 million to Palestinians, rejects Trump’s ‘deal’
Arab League pledges $100 million to Palestinians, rejects Trump’s ‘deal’
- Israel withheld the money over Palestinian payments to political prisoners
- Palestinian leadership boycotted Washington after they recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
