The Israeli government is mulling reducing the debt it collects from the Palestinian Authority to boost the financial and political stability of the PA.
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The consideration comes on the back of a weeklong visit to the region by the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel and Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr.
Amr expressed concerns about the financial sustainability of the PA and urged Israel to increase its capital reserves, officials who spoke with the US envoy told Haaretz.
Following the death of a prominent PA critic while in the custody of the administration's security services, the West Bank has seen wide-scale protests recently, with many calling for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to resign.
Last week, the cabinet declared it would confiscate $180 million in tax revenue collected on behalf of the PA to counterbalance the PA's payouts to prisoners, terrorists, and their families, Haaretz reported. This amounts to some 7% of the PA's total revenue.
Approximately half the taxes that fund the PA are collected on its behalf by Israel, which controls Area C.
In 2018, Israel passed a law mandating that the government deduct an amount equivalent to the PA's "terrorist salaries" from the tax revenue.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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