JERUSALEM, July  4, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Israel has approved a new payment of
more than $140 million to the Palestinian Authority after announcing it had
also unblocked some funds frozen because of the Gaza war, a finance ministry
spokesperson told AFP on Thursday.

   Since the start of the war on Hamas, far-right Israeli Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich has withheld payments of customs and tax duties to Palestinian
president Mahmud Abbas's administration.

    But Israeli officials said on Wednesday that the government had made a 435
million shekel ($116 million) payment for duties collected for April and May.
  A finance ministry spokeswoman said a further payment of about 530 million
shekels for duties collected for June was approved.

   Israel collects tax and customs duties for the Palestinian Authority under
a 1994 protocol, which granted sole control over the territories' borders to
Israel.
   According to economists, the payments collected by Israel account for 60
percent of the cash-strapped authority's revenues.

   Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammed Mustafa confirmed the 435
million shekel payment at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

 He said the money would be used for unpaid wages for tens of thousands of
Palestinian civil servants and suppliers.  

Authority workers have been living on reduced wages for months and the PA
has made repeated appeals for international aid.

 Mustafa added that Israel still owed the authority six billion shekels in
back payments.

  Israel stopped making the payments after the October 7 Hamas attacks in
southern Israel, with Smotrich accusing the PA of backing the Islamist
militants.

  Hamas is designated a "terrorist" organisation by the United States, the
European Union and other countries. It is distinct from the Palestinian
Authority.

   Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 following a violent struggle with Abbas' Fatah
faction, with the Palestinian Authority's influence limited to Palestinian-run
parts of the occupied West Bank.

   According to Israeli media reports, Smotrich only agreed to make the new
payments under a deal in which the government recognised five wildcat
settlements in the West Bank.

   In June, he ordered the transfer of about $35 million of the funds
collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to help Israeli "victims of
terrorism". The decision was condemned by the US government as "extraordinarily
wrongheaded".