Israel will release Palestinian tax revenues that it froze almost three months ago, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement March 27.
The revenues, hundreds of millions of dollars that Israel collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority as part of a standing arrangement established under the 1993 Oslo accords, have been withheld since the authority’s application to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The criminal court membership, which may allow Ramallah to expose Israel to a war crimes charges, became effective on April 1.
In January, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that Washington opposed the freeze.
“We conveyed to the Israelis that freezing the tax revenues is an action that raises tensions,” she said.— jta