Jonas Gahr Store has said that the payment Israel is withholding from the PA is “critical” for the welfare of Palestinians.
Norway is the chair of the international donor group to the Palestinian territories, known as the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee.
On November 2, Israel said it would proceed with a tax revenue transfer to the PA in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but would withhold funds bound for Hamas-ruled Gaza, where the PA helps cover public sector wages and pay for electricity.
On November 6, the PA said it would not accept a partial transfer from Israel. It is estimated to spend some 30 percent of its budget in Gaza, where it also pays for medicine and social assistance programmes.
The PA also still has thousands of Gaza civil servants on its payroll.
“We call on Israel to maintain the agreed transfer of what is Palestinian value creation, because these are taxes and VAT and financial sources (of income),” Store told Reuters in an interview in Oslo.
“Norway has been very clear that any development towards (the) breakdown of the PA will only serve the extremist forces on the Palestinian side,” he added.
Store did not say how much the withholding of money was worth but said it was “a substantial amount”.
Source: AlJazeera
