GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Authority has paid salaries to its West Bank employees this month but not those in Gaza, officials said Monday, amid an ongoing split with the strip's Islamist rulers Hamas.

It was not immediately clear why the salaries had not been paid and if the delay was temporary, but it comes as relations between the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and Hamas are at rock bottom.

Last month, PA president Mahmud Abbas accused Hamas of planning a failed assassination attempt on his prime minister, who was on a rare visit to Gaza.

But protests since along the Gaza border that have led to clashes in which Israeli forces have killed 31 Palestinians have led to expressions of support for Gazans from Abbas.

"Salaries were paid into banks in the West Bank and not in Gaza," Arif Abu Jarad, head of the union representing PA employees in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.

"There is a state of anger among staff in the strip," he added, saying they were having emergency meetings against this "terrible crime".

A source in the finance ministry in Ramallah, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the salaries had been paid in the West Bank but not Gaza.

He refused to give more details on the decision.

Employees in Gaza waited in vain for salaries at banks, an AFP photographer said.

The PA has kept paying its tens of thousands of employees in Gaza despite most not going to work since Hamas seized control of the territory from the PA in a 2007 near civil war.

Analysts say cutting the salaries would seek to increase discontent in the Gaza Strip, putting more pressure on Hamas.

Multiple reconciliation attempts between the two factions have failed, most recently an Egyptian-brokered deal signed in October.

Hugh Lovatt, Israel and Palestine fellow with the European Council of Foreign Relations think-tank, said the halt to payments, if confirmed, would represent Abbas "doubling down" on threats.

"This comes against the backdrop of increasing attempts by Abbas to impose sanctions on Hamas and Gazans," he told AFP.

"I see this as one more step." — AFP </s> CAIRO, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Palestine's Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections as a way to implement a deal to end their long-running feud, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Western-backed Palestine Authority, controlled by Fatah, fought a war with Hamas over Gaza in 2007, which led to Hamas taking over.

Attempts to reconcile the two and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have failed.

Hamas said in its statement that it agreed to dissolve administration running Gaza, allow the reconcillation government to carry out its duties in the territory, to hold elections and enter talks with Fatah.

Egypt has been brokering talks with Abbas's Fatah group to implement a deal signed in 2011 in Cairo with Islamist Hamas to end their dispute and form an interim government before elections.

With the prospect of a Middle East peace initiative by a new U.S. Trump administration more sympathetic to Israel, Abbas has put pressure on Hamas, including not paying Israel for electricity for Gaza territory and cutting salaries for civil servants there. (Reporting by Mohamed El Sherif; writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) </s> Palestine's Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

CAIRO: Palestine's Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections as a way to implement a deal to end their long-running feud, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Western-backed Palestine Authority, controlled by Fatah, fought a war with Hamas over Gaza in 2007, which led to Hamas taking over.

Attempts to reconcile the two and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have failed.

Hamas said in its statement that it agreed to dissolve administration running Gaza, allow the reconciliation government to carry out its duties in the territory, to hold elections and enter talks with Fatah.

Egypt has been brokering talks with Abbas's Fatah group to implement a deal signed in 2011 in Cairo with Islamist Hamas to end their dispute and form an interim government before elections.

With the prospect of a Middle East peace initiative by a new U.S. Trump administration more sympathetic to Israel, Abbas has put pressure on Hamas, including not paying Israel for electricity for Gaza territory and cutting salaries for civil servants there. </s> The Trump administration has decided to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza, the State Department said Friday.

The department notified Congress of the decision in a brief, three-paragraph notice sent first to lawmakers and then to reporters. It said the administration will redirect the money to "high priority projects elsewhere."

The move comes as President Donald Trump and his Middle East pointmen, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, staff up their office to prepare for the rollout of a much-vaunted but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer," the department said. "As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million ... originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza."

"This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation," the notice said, without providing additional details.

One main issue the U.S. has had with support for the Palestinian Authority had been its stipends paid to the families of Palestinians killed, injured or jailed for attacks on Israel. Israel and the Trump administration, have repeatedly demanded that those payments from a so-called "martyrs' fund" be halted because they encourage terrorism. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to do so.

The Palestine Liberation Organization quickly denounced the decision, calling it "the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool. The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion."

"The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale," PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement. "There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The U.S. administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation."

The notice did not give an exact amount of the funds to be cut, but said they had been approved in 2017 as part of a $230.1 million package in economic support funds for the Palestinians.

One official said the specific amount had not yet been determined because $25 million in planned 2017 funding for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which provides health care to Palestinians, remains on hold and under review. All or part of that could still be released or reprogrammed, the official said.

The U.S. had planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on Sept.30. But with just over a month to go before that money must be used, reprogrammed to other areas or returned to Treasury, less than half has actually been spent.

Earlier this month, the department had released about $60 million of the 2018 money for security projects that encourage cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Israel and Jordan, in particular, had lobbied for the security assistance to be continued.

The loss of the assistance is almost certain to further provoke the Palestinians against the Trump peace plan. The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias, notably after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. The Palestinian Authority and Abbas broke off contact with the U.S. after the Jerusalem announcement.

The announcement does not include some $65 million in frozen U.S. funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon. However, the Trump administration is extremely skeptical of UNRWA and that money is also likely to be reprogrammed, according to officials.

Friday's decision follows a similar decision last week in which the State Department announced that it was redirecting $230 million dollars in aid that had been planned for stabilization programs in liberated areas of Syria. In that case, however, the department said the loss of U.S. funding would be more than offset by other nations, including Saudi Arabia, which announced a $150 million contribution for Syria stabilization just hours before the American announcement. </s> Washington: United States (US) president Donald Trump has ordered the state department to withdraw $200 million-worth aid which was previously planned for West Bank and Gaza.

"At the direction of the President, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY 2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza. Those funds will now address high-priority projects elsewhere," a senior state department official told CNN.

The decision to withdraw the aid comes after Trump ordered a review of "US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer."

Condemning the decision, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said the US administration was "demonstrating the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool," and added that the Palestinian leadership would not be intimidated by the same.

"There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation," Ashrawi said. </s> The United States is cutting more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians, the State Department said on Friday, amid a deteriorating relationship with the Palestinian leadership.

A senior State Department official said without elaborating that the funds, originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza, would address "high-priority projects elsewhere."

"We have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer," the official said in a statement.

"As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza."

Asked where the money would be redirected and whether it would go to other Palestinian projects, another State Department official said: "We will work with Congress to redirect these funds to other policy priorities."

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The announcement came at a time when the Palestinian leadership has angered the White House by boycotting its peace efforts since President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the embassy there, reversing decades of U.S. policy.

The status of Jerusalem - home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions - is one of the biggest obstacles to any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state they seek. Israel says Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital.

Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is leading an effort to craft a peace plan meant to launch negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to end a decades-long conflict. A decision on when the initiative would be rolled out has not yet been made.

The State Department cited the Islamist militant group Hamas' control of Gaza as part of its justification for reallocating the funds. The United States and Israel designate Hamas as a terrorist group.

The decision is almost certain to exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. More than 2 million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, which suffers deep economic hardship.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi accused the Trump administration of using "cheap blackmail as a political tool."

"The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion," she said.

Ambassador Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO General Delegation to the United States, said in a statement: "Weaponizing humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail does not work."

The United States had in January announced it would withhold $65 million of $125 million that it had planned to send to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from U.N. states, with the United states as the largest contributor.

UNRWA and the Palestinians have warned that cuts could exacerbate hardship in Gaza, an enclave that has been under Israeli and Egypt blockades designed to isolate its Islamist Hamas rulers.

U.S. National Security adviser John Bolton told Reuters this week that UNRWA was "a failed mechanism" that violated standard international law on the status of refugees.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 after the first Arab-Israel war, which led to 700,000 Palestinians being forced to leave their homes or flee. It helps around 5 million Palestinian refugees, a figure that includes descendants of those displaced by the fighting

Jordan, which hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East outside Palestinian territories, warned this month that a severe financial shortfall facing UNRWA could have a "catastrophic" impact on the lives of millions of refugees in the region.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, criticized the Trump administration's decision.

"Inhabitants of Gaza are already suffering severe hardships under the tyranny of Hamas and border restrictions imposed by Israel. It is the Palestinian people, virtual prisoners in an increasingly volatile conflict, who will most directly suffer the consequences of this callous and ill-advised attempt to respond to Israel's security concerns." </s> The United States, a major ally of Israel, has cut more than $200m in economic aid to Palestinians, in a move that comes months after also drastically cutting its contribution to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

A senior US official said on Friday that President Donald Trump had ordered the State Department to “redirect” the funding for programmes in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip to unspecified “high-priority projects elsewhere”.

The official added that the decision took into account “the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation”.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) quickly denounced the US move, calling it “the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool. The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion.”

“The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale,” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement.

“There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation.”

The decision to cut Palestinian funding comes amid a severe humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where more than 160 Palestinians protesting for their right to return to the areas from which they were forcibly expelled from in 1948 have been killed by Israeli gunfire since March 30 during weeks-long demonstrations near the fence with Israel.

Officials in the Gaza Strip, which has been administered by Hamas since 2007, have previously blasted the US for its support to Israel, saying that Washington has long lost its regional credibility.

The US had planned to give the Palestinians $251m for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on September 30.

Washington gives Israel annual military aid of $3.1bn. Next year, that figure will increase to $3.8bn under a 10-year deal agreed by Barack Obama shortly before he stepped down as US president. </s> The US State department has said the Trump administration has decided to cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza.

In a short notice sent to lawmakers on Friday, it said the administration will redirect the money to "high-priority projects elsewhere."

"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer," the department said.

The notice did not provide an exact amount of the funds to be cut.

The cuts come just as President Donald Trump and his Middle East point men, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, prepare to present a long-awaited but as yet unclear peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The US had initially planned to give the Palestinians $251 million for good governance, health, education and funding for civil society in the current 2018 budget year that ends on September 30.

Read more: Gaza feels bite of US cuts to Palestinian aid

The Palestine Liberation Organization was quick to denounce the decision. "The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale," PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement.

"There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation and its theft of land and resources; now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation."

Loss of the funds is almost certain to further provoke the Palestinians and set them against the Trump peace plan. The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December, and the US moved its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May.

The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, broke off contact with the US after the Jerusalem announcement.

Friday's move to cut aid does not take into account some $65 million in frozen US funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon. But officials have said the Trump administration is extremely skeptical of UNRWA, and said the money is also likely to be redirected.

The funding decision comes after a similar decision last week in which the State Department announced it was going to redirect $230 million in aid that had been planned for stabilization programs in liberated areas of Syria.

In that case, however, the department said the loss of US funding would be more than offset by other nations, including Saudi Arabia, which announced a $150 million contribution for Syria stabilization just hours before the American announcement.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday expressed fear that the talk about easing restrictions on the Gaza Strip was part of an Israeli-Palestinian “conspiracy” to transform the Palestinian cause into a “humanitarian issue.”



The PA, which has been imposing its own financial sanctions on the Gaza Strip, also expressed fear that the easing of restrictions would embolden Hamas and tighten its grip over the coastal enclave.

Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah claimed that the US administration and the Israeli government were now talking about improving the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a way of “undermining the Palestinian national project, including the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.”The PA leadership has been facing growing pressure from Palestinians to lift the sanctions that President Mahmoud Abbas imposed on the Gaza Strip about one year ago. The sanctions include, among other things, cutting off salaries to thousands of PA employees, as well as financial assistance to hundreds of families in the Gaza Strip. The PA initially said it would stop paying for the electricity and fuel that Israel supplies to the Gaza Strip, but later partially backtracked.The PA’s sanctions on the Gaza Strip have triggered an unprecedented wave of protests in some parts of the West Bank, with Palestinian protesters demanding an end to the punitive measures.Some PA representatives said they were hoping that the sanctions would aggravate the humanitarian crisis to a point where Palestinians would revolt against Hamas, which violently seized the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.PA officials have repeatedly emphasized in recent weeks that they will not lift the sanctions unless Hamas relinquishes control over the Gaza Strip and allows the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to assume its civilian and security responsibilities there.PA officials in Ramallah have been following with increased concern statements by Israeli and US administration officials about the need to prevent a humanitarian and economic crisis in the Gaza Strip.On Tuesday, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the PA presidency, described the ideas that are being floated around concerning the Gaza Strip as “illusions.”These ideas, he said, were aimed at “abolishing the Palestinian national entity and killing the [Palestinian] national project of establishing our independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.”Abu Rudaineh claimed that the US and Israel were seeking to exploit the crisis in the Gaza Strip for “political and humanitarian” purposes.Referring to a report about an Israeli plan to build a sea port in Cyprus for cargo ships destined for the Gaza Strip, the PA spokesperson said that such “suspicious” ideas and proposals should only come in the context of a comprehensive political solution that is based on international resolutions.“This is an attempt to create coexistence with the occupation and evade the explosive reality,” Abu Rudeineh said.Channel 2 reported on Monday that Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had advanced the port plan during his recent visit to Cyprus.According to the report, the plan would include construction of a special pier for cargo ships carrying goods destined for the Gaza Strip. They would be checked with the help of an Israeli monitoring mechanism to ensure that no weapons were being smuggled into the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave.However, a government spokesman in Cyprus was quoted on Tuesday as saying, “There is no agreement over the construction of a port in Cyprus to send, under Israeli control, goods to the Gaza Strip, but there is a request which is being considered.”Asked to comment on the Cyprus port idea, a top Abbas aide said, “We don’t understand what’s going on; has Cyprus become an Israeli province? Who gave Israel the authority to involve Cyprus in matters related to a sea port or a prisoner exchange agreement [between Hamas and Israel]?”Some officials and political analysts in Ramallah said they were convinced that the increased talk about solving the crisis in the Gaza Strip was part of the US administration’s yet-to-be-announced peace plan. They believe that the plan, which US President Donald Trump has called the “deal of the century,” is aimed at “solidifying” the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.“Israel and this US administration don’t want to see the West Bank and Gaza Strip united,” said a veteran Fatah official. “But what they need to understand is that any gestures to the Gaza Strip will play into the hands of Hamas, prolong its rule and absolve of its responsibilities towards the residents living there. This would be a severe blow to President Abbas’s efforts over the past few years to undermine Hamas.”ABDEL NASSER Al-Najjar, a former chairman of the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, said he was worried about reports to the effect that Hamas was prepared to accept US and Israeli ideas to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians and ease restrictions on the Gaza Strip.“It would be a disaster for the Palestinians if the new American peace initiative would be presented as a plan to lift sanctions and improve living conditions in the Gaza Strip,” Najjar wrote in an article published in the PA’s daily Al-Ayyam newspaper. “Obviously, the Palestinian cause is at a crossroads and the Palestinian leadership is facing immense pressure. But in the end, it is the Palestinians who decide. Even if the whole world accepts it, the [US] peace plan will not pass without the Palestinians’ consent.”Najjar and other Palestinians, including several Abbas loyalists, urged the PA leadership to remove the sanctions against the Gaza Strip to avoid a situation where the Palestinians would have to permanently live with two separate entities.“It would be better for us to share hunger than to destroy the Palestinian cause,” Najjar wrote, appealing to the PA leadership to lift the sanctions and reconsider its entire policy towards the Gaza Strip.Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction, in a statement published in Ramallah, claimed that some Hamas leaders seemed to support Israeli and US proposals to focus on solving the humanitarian and economic crisis in the Gaza Strip.Fatah also claimed that Hamas leaders, who it did not mention by name, have been sending “direct messages to the US and America” to discuss the proposals under the pretext of finding humanitarian solutions to the crisis in the Gaza Strip.In its statement, Fatah warned Hamas that dealing with the Israeli and American proposals was tantamount to “betraying the cause, the land, Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa [Mosque].”Palestinian political analyst Amjad Subhi said that the talk about solving the crisis in the Gaza Strip has worried Abbas and several senior officials in Ramallah. “The Palestinian Authority sees this as a gift to Hamas,” he said. “Abbas and his government believe that Israel and the US want to keep Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip so that the Palestinians would never be able to establish their own unified and independent state.”Subhi and other sources in Ramallah said that the PA leaders were already concerned about Egypt’s recent decision to reopen the Rafah border crossing along its shared border with the Gaza Strip. Abbas is even reported to have sent messages to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi protesting against the reopening of the Rafah terminal.Abbas, according to an informed source in Ramallah, is particularly worried that his political arch-rival, Mohammed Dahlan, would benefit from the Egyptian gesture. Dahlan, who is based in the United Arab Emirates and has close ties with Sisi, is said to have played a vital role in convincing the Egyptian authorities to ease travel restrictions on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.Sisi dismissed Abbas’s messages and said Egypt was acting on the basis of what’s good for its national security and interests, the source said.“We have reached an absurd situation where Israel, the US, and many international parties are doing their utmost to find a solution to the problems in the Gaza Strip and alleviate the suffering of the people, while the Palestinian president and his government are working hard to keep the sanctions and intensify the crisis,” the source added.

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The Palestinian Authority pays salaries to its West Bank staff but not to staff in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, amid growing disputes between the two groups.