JERUSALEM - 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 on 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.
PeopleÂ’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.
| In other words, the Paleos got the government they asked for ... |
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.
| Think about it for a while. Then debate it, then draft a resolution on the money, then debate that, then ... |