Arab League pledges $100 million to Palestinians

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The Arab League has pledged to pay 100 million U.S. dollars a month to the Palestinian Authority to plug the gap left when Israel blocked tax transfers earlier in the year.

"We confirm that Arab countries will support the Palestinian state's budget... (to) resist the political and financial pressure it faces," the League said Sunday following a meeting in Cairo.

Israel collects taxes on behalf of the PA, but withheld 138 million U.S. dollars in transfers in February over Palestinian payments to political prisoners jailed for attacks against Israelis.

The Arab League's move comes as the Trump administration prepares to unveil a much-touted "Deal of the Century" for peace between the Palestinians and Israel in the coming months.

The Palestinian leadership, which has boycotted Washington over a series of moves including recognizing Jerusalem as capital of Israel, says it can no longer trust the United States as a broker.

Members of the Palestinian community and their supporters march toward the Israeli consulate in Chicago, Illinois, to protest President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, May 15, 2018. /Getty Image

The Arab League said the deal "will not succeed in achieving long-lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East".

The peace plan is being developed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose close ties to right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have heightened Palestinian suspicions.

Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

(Top image: Members of the Arab League hold a meeting at the grouping's headquarters in the Egyptian capital of Cairo to discuss the latest developments in the Palestinian territories, April 21, 2019. /Getty Image)

Source(s): AFP