January 20, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 29, 1427

JERUSALEM, Jan 19: Israel handed over $100 million in frozen funds to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority on Friday in an effort to bolster President Mahmud Abbas, locked in a power struggle with the ruling Hamas movement.

The move came as European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met the moderate Abbas and said the EU aimed to do its utmost to revitalise the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Since Hamas took power in March, Israel has withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in customs duties collected on behalf of the Palestinians, worsening an already grave economic crisis.

“This morning we transferred $100 million to an account of the Palestinian presidency,” an official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office told AFP.

The money, promised by Olmert at a summit with Abbas last month, would go towards “humanitarian purposes and strengthening Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s presidential guard, as agreed upon by the two sides.” —AFP