UNITED NATIONS, July 26: Arab league envoys and the United Nations on Wednesday called on the international community to help the cash strapped Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

The call came as Arab envoys at the UN stepped up demands for international action to halt building Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.

President Mahmoud Abbas's government has been facing a growing financial crisis this year, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry told the UN Security Council. Saudi Arabia last week gave $100 million to help the Palestinian Authority pay salaries that were due in June.

Serry said Israel handed over tax revenues that it collects for the authority two weeks in advance last week “to assist with the payment of salaries ahead of the holy month of Ramadan."

"We call on other donors, particularly other Gulf countries, to consider a timely donation during this period of critical shortage,” Serry said.

Pakistan’s representative said that settlement activity in the occupied territories had served to erode the possibility of a peaceful solution of the crisis.

“With further intensification of Israel’s illegal settlement campaign, it has again become evident that prospects of a two-state solution on the basis of pre-1967 borders are being eroded”, said Ambassador Raza Bashir Tarrar.

He added that reports showed that Palestinians were deprived of rights and that Council resolutions were flouted by Israel, he added.

“The denial of the Palestinians right to self-determination remains at the heart of unrest in the region,” Mr Tarrar told the 15-nation Council, while urging it to act with urgency.

Ambassador Tarar said there was an elaborate framework that had the backing of Arab states’ for a Palestinian plan to ask for UN recognition of the State of Palestine. We remain ready and willing to assist.”