By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel plans to use tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to pay the PA's nearly 2 billion shekel ($544 million) debt to state-run Israel Electric Co (IEC), Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday.
Israel collects tax on goods that pass through Israel into the occupied West Bank on behalf of the PA and transfers the revenue to Ramallah under a longstanding arrangement between the two sides.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war in Gaza, Smotrich has withheld sums totalling 800 million shekels earmarked for administration expenses in Gaza.
Those frozen funds are held in Norway and, he said at Sunday's cabinet meeting, would instead be used to pay debt owed to the IEC of 1.9 billion shekels.
"The procedure was implemented after several anti-Israeli actions and included Norway's unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state," Smotrich told cabinet ministers.
"The PA's debt to IEC resulted in high loans and interest rates, as well as damage to IEC's credit, which were ultimately rolled over to the citizens of Israel."
The Palestinian Finance Ministry said it had agreed for Norway to release a portion of funds from an account held since last January with 1.5 billion shekels, calling money in the account "a punitive measure linked to the government’s financial support for Gaza".
The ministry said as part of the deal, 767 million shekels of the Norwegian-held funds will pay Israeli fuel companies for weekly fuel purchases over the coming months. A similar amount will be used to settle electricity-related debts owed by Palestinian distribution companies to IEC.
Smotrich has been opposed to sending funds to the PA, which uses the money to pay public sector wages. He accuses the PA of supporting the Oct. 7 attack in Israel led by the Islamist movement Hamas, which controlled Gaza. The PA is currently paying 50-60% of salaries.
Israel also deducts funds equal to the total amount of so-called martyr payments, which the PA pays to families of militants and civilians killed or imprisoned by Israeli authorities.
The Palestinian finance ministry said 2.1 billion shekels remain withheld by Israel, bringing the total withheld funds to over 3.6 billion shekels as of 2024.
Israel, it said, began deducting an average of 275 million shekels monthly from its tax revenues in October 2023, equivalent to the government’s monthly allocations for Gaza.
"This has exacerbated the financial crisis, as the government continues to transfer these allocations directly to the accounts of public servants in Gaza," the ministry said.
It added it was working with international partners to secure the release of these funds as soon as possible.
($1 = 3.6763 shekels)