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A gas station worker sits at a closed gas station, due to lack of fuel, in Ramallah, Wednesday. (AP)
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Israeli FM Tzipi Livni, Tuesday (AP)
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US consul general in Jerusalem Jacob Walles, second from right, looks at boxes contain supplies donated to the Palestinians, Wednesday. (AP)
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Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh, Tuesday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners May 11, 2006 |
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Israel, pressured by international alarm over a brewing Palestinian humanitarian crisis, has agreed to release millions of dollars in funds it has withheld from the Palestinians and is considering easing restrictions on the transport of goods between Israel and the Gaza Strip, officials said Thursday.
Israel stopped transferring some $55 million in tax and customs revenues it collects monthly on behalf of the Palestinians after the Hamas-dominated parliament was sworn in three months ago.
The withholding of those funds, coupled with a cutoff in desperately needed aid from the U.S. and European Union, has left the Hamas-led government broke and unable to pay salaries for the past two months to workers who provide for about one-third of the people in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
People's savings are rapidly dwindling, merchants are forced to buy and sell on credit, gas stations have no fuel to pump and schoolteachers have started striking for back wages. International aid workers and government officials say the Palestinian health care system is verging on disaster, and that sanitation and sewage systems are liable to crash if money is not found soon.
International Mideast negotiators, worried by the reports, agreed at a meeting Tuesday in New York to release humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and to set up a special fund to administer the transfer.
Israel worries that easing the pressure on Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, would be counterproductive to Western efforts to force it to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist.
But with the West softening its stance, Israel followed suit. On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Channel 10 TV that Israel, too, was willing to have withheld tax and customs revenues used "for humanitarian needs such as medicines and health needs."
Livni said Israel would not agree to use the funds to pay salaries of Palestinian government employees. Officials said the sums of money, and when it would be released, must still be decided.
Separately, talks to resolve the Palestinian fuel shortage were under way Thursday with the sole provider of fuel to the Palestinians, Israel's Dor Energy, and Israeli authorities, said Mujahid Salame, head of the Palestinian fuel authority. Filling stations dried up after Dor suspended deliveries to the Palestinians earlier this week because of unpaid bills. Speaking to Voice of Palestine radio, Salame said he expected an agreement soon.
Israel's dovish defense minister, meanwhile, is considering easing restrictions on the passage of goods between Israel and Gaza, in keeping with a call from the international mediators at the meeting on Tuesday.
Israel has kept the main Karni cargo crossing closed for much of the year. The Israeli military cites security concerns, but Palestinians say they are being penalized for electing Hamas as their rulers.
Because the closures have choked off the flow of goods, compounding the misery caused by the economic boycott, Defense Minister Amir Peretz is considering showing greater flexibility at Karni, security officials said.
The matter was expected to be on the agenda late Thursday when Peretz presides for the first time over a weekly session of top security officials. At that meeting, Peretz will hear their reasoning for opposing Israeli negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party.
Abbas is eager to resume long-stalled talks, and Peretz thinks Israel should start negotiating with him.
But the Israeli military, like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, thinks the Palestinian government should be treated as a single entity. Olmert says negotiations should not resume with Abbas unless Hamas accepts Israel's demand for recognition and a renunciation of violence.
Because of Hamas' refusal to bend to Israel's demands, Olmert is expected to proceed unilaterally with his plan to pull tens of thousands of Jewish settlers out of heavily populated Palestinian areas while fortifying major settlement blocs and holding on to Jordan River Valley.
The Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported Thursday that Olmert is considering carrying out the pullback in phases, because of the large numbers of Jewish settlers who are to be uprooted.
Last year's withdrawal from Gaza and four small settlements in Judea and Samaria was completed within a week, but in that operation, 9,000 settlers were evacuated and resettled.
In related news, Peretz plans to dismantle all 124 unauthorized Judean and Samarian settlement outposts, Yediot reported.
Israel has not carried out its promise to the U.S. in 2003 to dismantle the two-dozen outposts Jewish settlers put up after Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister in March 2001.
Peretz's plan would go much further than that, Yediot said, encompassing all unauthorized outposts.
Settlers have put up the outposts - some no more than a few mobile homes - for more than a decade in an effort to break up Palestinian areas and block the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.
Under pressure, U.S. softens stand
Twice this week, international partners forced a tough-talking Bush administration to swallow a more accommodating, slower approach to difficult problems in the Middle East that the United States cannot solve alone.
On Hamas, the United States went along with a plan announced Tuesday to set up a new fund for international aid donations to the Palestinians, even though the money could indirectly help the Hamas militants now leading the Palestinian government.
Even if the United States never pays a dime into it, the new fund represents a softening of the categorical stance the Bush administration had taken against any engagement that could benefit Hamas.
Both the United States and the European Union list Hamas as a terrorist organization because of bomb attacks on Israel. The E.U. had joined the United States in cutting off direct and most indirect aid to the Palestinian government now that Hamas is in charge, but European leaders were increasingly uneasy about the cost that the boycott imposed on ordinary Palestinians.
Public opinion in Europe often favors Palestinian causes and governments are leery of looking too harsh.
European governments were by far the largest donors to the previous, secular government. The possibility that the money could be restored offers Hamas a more powerful incentive to change than the United States can dangle alone.
The new fund is meant only to head off a building humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Palestinian territories precipitated by the boycott. But the money also could ease pressure on Hamas from within by restoring services Hamas has been unable to provide. That may be particularly true if the money goes to pay some of the 165,000 Palestinian civil servants whose paychecks Hamas cannot now fulfill.
Quartet proposal for Palestinians leaves many questions unanswered
The "Quartet" of international Mideast peacemakers decided to establish a temporary fund to funnel humanitarian aid to the impoverished Palestinian territories, nearly two months after cutting off aid in response to formation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government. But Tuesday's decision by the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia leaves many key issues unresolved.
Q: What did the Quartet decide?
The members accepted a European proposal to set up a new program to send aid directly to the Palestinian people while bypassing the Hamas government. The U.S. and EU have branded Hamas a terrorist organization and refuse to allow aid to be handled by the group.
Q: Why did they make this decision?
The Palestinians rely heavily on foreign aid, particularly from the U.S. and EU. The cutoff in aid, along with Israel's parallel decision to withhold tax and customs duties it collects for the Palestinians, has led to an economic crisis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Q: How will this program work?
With the EU leading the way, the Quartet must work out many details, including how much money will be delivered, how it will be spent and how it can ensure that the money is not used for terrorism. EU officials said Wednesday "it's not possible" to put a firm timeline on the effort, though External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said earlier she hopes the system will launch within weeks.
Q: Is this considered a permanent solution?
No. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the system will be reviewed after three months. The Quartet also renewed its long-standing demand that Hamas renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept previous peace agreements. Hamas, committed to Israel's destruction, has rejected these demands.
Q: How might the money be spent?
Palestinian officials want the money to be used to pay the salaries of the 165,000 government employees - the backbone of the local economy. Due to the financial crunch, these people - who include teachers, civil servants, health workers and security personnel - haven't been paid in two months.
EU officials say they hope the money will be used for "essential services" like schools and hospitals, but stress details must still be worked out.
The money might also be used for more traditional humanitarian purposes, such as food aid, or to pay Palestinian debts to Israel. The Palestinians rely on Israel for important supplies like fuel, electricity and water. The Israeli company that provides gasoline to the Palestinians plans to cut off deliveries because of heavy debts.
Q: European diplomats have raised the possibility of paying salaries only to essential government workers, such as doctors and teachers? Is this feasible?
Palestinian officials oppose this idea, saying that all government workers have families to feed. A failure to pay the salaries of the restive security forces, who account for nearly one half of the payroll, could also fuel new unrest in the volatile Palestinian areas.
Q: Since Hamas controls the government ministries, how can the donors pay public workers without dealing with the Islamic militant group?
Two options are under consideration: Funneling the money through the office of the moderate Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, or having an international body, such as the World Bank, administer the funds. EU officials, however, say they do not want to work through the president's office.
Q: How bad is the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian areas?
With roughly one-third of Palestinian families dependent on government salaries, people have been managing by spending their savings, borrowing and selling property like jewelry.
In March, the World Bank warned that Palestinian poverty could reach 67 percent by the end of the year. This week, it said even that projection might be too optimistic. It warned 2006 is shaping up to be "the worst year in Judea, Samaria and Gaza's dismal recent economic history."
Q: What was Hamas' reaction to the Quartet plan?
Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghazi Hamad said the Hamas government "appreciates all efforts aimed at ending the ongoing crisis in the Palestinian areas," but regrets that the Quartet has attached conditions to the aid payments.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Atef Adwan on Wednesday criticized the decision by the so-called Quartet of Middle East peacemakers to have humanitarian aid bypass the Hamas-led government and be funneled directly to the Palestinian people.
Adwan, who is Hamas' refugee minister, said it would take "too long" for the funds to reach the Palestinians in that case.
"It is good but it is not enough," Adwan said.
The political leader of the militant Palestinian Hamas organization on Wednesday called on Arabs and Muslims to support the Palestinians in their struggle with arms, men and money.
"It's the right of the (Palestinian) people that its nation provides it with weapons across all the Arab borders," the Syrian-based Khaled Mashaal told a conference of Islamic scholars meeting to garner support for the Hamas-led Palestinian government. "Weapons are a right for the Palestinian people," he added.
"Tell the Americans and the Zionists that your insistence to starve the Palestinian people means you will find yourselves in a struggle with 1.5 billion Muslims," Mashaal urged.
Some 30 Islamic scholars from across the world, including the west, are attending the two-day gathering.
"We will not cave in to pressure come what may," Mashaal told the meeting.
AP contributed to this report.
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