BICOM

A senior Israeli government minister yesterday outlined a number of development projects that Israel is supporting to improve Palestinian standards of living.

Tzachi Hanegbi was heading Israel’s delegation at a conference of donors to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in New York. Hanegbi, who is considered close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, highlighted a number of projects which are being backed by Israel.

According to Yediot Ahronot, he cited a decision to link the PA to Israel’s natural gas pipeline, the supply of six million cubic metres of water to the PA, new banking cooperation and the allocation of phone networks.

Hanegbi also referred to a recent agreement resolving a massive debt owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC). The outstanding debt had become a contentious diplomatic issue, with the IEC periodically having frozen electricity supplies to specific Palestinian areas. Such cuts were criticised in some international quarters and Israel’s government instead deducted portions of the debt from tax payments collected on behalf of the PA.

Hanegbi reportedly asked the donor countries to help bolster the Palestinian economy. Yediot Ahronot says that the decision to send Hanegbi to the conference and his enthusiastic endorsement of recent initiatives “reflects a change in the Netanyahu government’‎s position”. The coverage suggests that “in light of the impasse in the negotiations and the fear of international political pressure, Israel has decided to be generous and has agreed to projects that it [had] opposed in the past”.

In separate news, the spate of Palestinian attacks on Israelis continued yesterday. A 16-year-old Palestinian male attempted to stab a soldier during a security check at the entrance of Bani Naim near the West Bank city of Hebron. The assailant was shot dead at the scene by troops. It was the ninth attack on Israelis in the West Bank and Jerusalem within five days and the third attack in the Hebron region within 24 hours.