Jerusalem – Israel said Sunday that it would release about $11 million in Palestinian tax money it has been holding and allow the funds to be used for medicine and equipment for Palestinian hospitals while bypassing the new Hamas-led government.
The decision came against a backdrop of severe economic and humanitarian problems in the Gaza Strip and tensions between Palestinian factions that some believe could ignite civil war.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sought to cool tempers Sunday, but security officials said they found a bomb in the road near the home of one of his top aides.
Israeli officials said the money would be used to help stock hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip through international aid organizations, although the mechanism was still to be worked out.
The sum represents slightly more than 5 percent of the estimated $200 million in tax revenues and customs duties that Israel has collected since Hamas took control of the Palestinian government.
Israel collects about $50 million monthly on behalf of the Palestinian Authority under a 12-year-old economic agreement. In February, the Israelis stopped transferring the money to the Palestinians to keep it from Hamas, an Islamic movement sworn to Israel’s destruction.
“We have no intention of helping the Palestinian government. We will not transfer so much as a penny to any Palestinian official, but I say, we will render such assistance as may be necessary for humanitarian needs,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during the Cabinet meeting where the decision was approved.
Afterward, Olmert headed for Washington, where he was scheduled to meet with President Bush on Tuesday.
A Palestinian government spokesman criticized the Israeli decision.
Ghazi Hamad, the Cabinet secretary, said Israel had no right to spend the Palestinian tax money, which he said had become an instrument of “blackmail.”
“The money is Palestinian money,” Hamad said. “We don’t want Israel to control our priorities and direct the money where they want.”
Israel’s freezing of the tax and customs revenue, its frequent closures of border crossings into the Gaza Strip and a cutoff of most foreign aid to the Hamas-led government have left the Palestinians unable to pay public employees and hospitals reporting severe shortages of medications.
Aid groups have warned of a deepening crisis. Escalating skirmishes between militants of Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement have added to the tension.
