Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday that Israel would implement a series of measures intended to prop up the indebted Palestinian Authority and ease Palestinians’ daily life, APA reports citing Times of Israel.
The announcement followed a meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Gantz in Gantz’s Rosh Ha’ayin home, near Tel Aviv, on Tuesday night.
The meeting was the first working session between Abbas and a senior Israeli official inside Israel in over a decade.
Israel will provide the PA with a NIS 100 million loan ($32.2 million) on tax revenues Israel collects on Ramallah’s behalf, in an attempt to reduce the PA’s spiraling deficit. Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, has seen dwindling foreign aid for years, and almost none from its biggest backers in 2021.
Israel will also legalize the status of 9,500 undocumented Palestinians and foreigners living in the West Bank and Gaza, Gantz said.
According to another Israel official, Gantz told Abbas that a series of economic measures are being weighed, including lowering fees for purchasing fuel and a pilot program to allow shipping containers to enter the West Bank from Jordan via Allenby Bridge.
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