LONDON: Mohammad Mustafa, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, held talks with EU officials at the second ministerial meeting of the Palestine Donor Group in Brussels, Belgium.
The 65 delegations launched the Team Gaza Initiative on Monday, with an initial package of €883.6 million (nearly $1 billion) to support water and sanitation, waste management, healthcare, energy, agriculture, and food security in the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Mustafa held talks on the sidelines with various European officials from Norway, Ireland, the UK, and Germany, as well as with Anna Bjerde, the managing director of operations at the World Bank, according to the Palestine News Agency.
The UK said it would provide £10 million ($13.4 million) in funding to support early recovery efforts in Gaza, as it called for faster international action on the US-sponsored 20-point peace plan for the region.
Mustafa warned that Israeli policies aim to weaken the PA’s institutions through financial measures, particularly by withholding nearly $5 billion in Palestinian tax revenues, which are essential for paying the wages of 153,000 government employees and funding public schools and hospitals.
The PA is also under pressure from European donors to reform its political systems while it faces challenges from Israeli settlers in the West Bank and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the war between Israel and Hamas since late 2023. It declared Nov. 28 as the date for the long-expected legislative elections, the first time in two decades, since January 2006.
