PA: Israel did not meet Aqaba promise to release withheld Palestinian funds

Israel has not fulfilled the promise it made during the Aqaba talks a few weeks ago to release withheld Palestinian money, Palestinian Authority Civil Affairs Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh said on Saturday.

“They promised at Aqaba that they would transfer all of the funds, but as of now we have not gotten anything,” Al-Sheikh told the Times of Israel.

Al Sheikh is the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Executive Committee and is one of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ closest advisers.

He said that there are currently “millions of our [dollars] being held by the Israeli side, which promised both before Aqaba and at Aqaba itself to [release them].”

Meanwhile, Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the issue of the withheld PA money “was not discussed at all at this stage.”

Hanegbi, who led the Israeli delegation at the Aqaba meeting, told the Times of Israel that this issue “will be discussed in the future by the civil committee that was established at the[Aqaba] meeting.”

Last month, the PA announced that Israel had deducted 267 million shekels ($78 million) from the monthly tax revenues it collects on Ramallah’s behalf.

This came following a pledge made by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to double the monthly amount of Palestinian revenue that Israel seizes.

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