By Daisy Ayliffe - 9th May 2006
The EU is set to manage an interim mechanism for channelling aid directly to the Palestinians.
On Tuesday the Quartet of EU, UN, US and Russian negotiators said aid would be channelled to the people bypassing the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA).
The Quartet will set up a "temporary international mechanism" to direct the money for a three month trial period.
The PA has faced financial crisis since aid was frozen after Hamas won elections in February and it is now expected that salaries to the PA’s 165,000 employees, unpaid since March, will be paid.
The decision would appear to reflect the view that payment of salaries amounts to humanitarian support for the largely impoverished Palestinian population.
Humanitarian support was never intended to be cut off.
Israel had pushed hard and successfully for financial assistance to the Palestinians to be severed after the Hamas-led administration took power in March.
But on Wednesday the Israeli foreign minister accepted the Quartet's latest decision.
"As far as we are concerned, the Quartet's decision to give further humanitarian support to the PA, bypassing the Hamas government, is definitely okay," Tzipi Livni said.
The move will be seen as a European victory as the US had initially opposed Brussels plans for aid to the Palestinians to be paid through a trust fund that bypassed Hamas.
"If you need a hospital to be run, and someone has to be paid, he will be paid," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said after the initiative was announced.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said the agreement showed the international community "is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people."
EU external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said experts would meet in Brussels to work on the interim aid plan.
She said the mechanism would take weeks rather than days to devise.
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