Gantz announces new measures to strengthen PA following Abbas meeting
Israel to lend lend Palestinian Authority half a billion shekels ($155 million)
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday announced a series of steps that Israel will take to strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) following Sunday evening's meeting in Ramallah with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
The meeting with Abbas was the first Israeli-Palestinian face-to-face exchange at this ministerial level in over a decade.
The last meeting between Abbas and a high-ranking Israeli official took place between the PA president and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2010.
Gantz said that Israel will lend the PA NIS 500 million ($155 million) to be repaid in June 2022 from the tax money that Israel collects on behalf of the PA that is approved by Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman. The figure is lower than a previous estimate before the meeting of NIS 800 million ($248.5 million) that an Israeli official said had been formulated.
Employment permits for Palestinians will be increased by 15,000 while 1,000 workers will be added in the tourism sector.
Building permits will also be issued in Area C of the West Bank.
Israel will also begin determining the legal status of thousands of Palestinians living without documentation in the West Bank.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad condemned Abbas for meeting with Gantz, calling it a "betrayal of the blood of the martyrs," according to a statement from Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanou.