Aid to reach Palestinians in need, not Hamas

UNITED NATIONS – U.S. officials, under heavy pressure from fellow Middle East mediators, agreed Tuesday to the creation of a trial emergency channel for funneling humanitarian aid to Palestinians while keeping a funding freeze on the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

The group of peace brokers, known as the Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – said the new “international mechanism,” which will send money through such institutions as The World Bank and the U.N., is meant to halt a shortage of medical supplies and other critical goods without supporting the newly elected Hamas party. The European Union would set up the aid channel, which will be reviewed after three months.

Although U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had urged other nations to maintain a hard line against the long-militant Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and which America considers a terrorist group, she agreed following strong lobbying that the United States would support the initiation of the aid channel, while not contributing to it.

“The goal is not to transfer responsibility for meeting the needs of the Palestinian people from the government to the international community,” Rice said in a news conference with the other officials after the meetings. “It is to provide assistance to the Palestinian people so they do not suffer deprivation.”

Rice announced that the United States would separately provide $10 million in medical assistance through UNICEF and in-kind donations.

In a meeting with the Quartet officials Tuesday morning, foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia warned of civil war among Palestinians if Hamas collapsed. The World Bank reported Monday that the humanitarian crisis appears to be far graver than expected after the aid freeze in March and cautioned of a breakdown in law and order, health services and education if help did not reach the people.

Before Hamas took control of the Palestinian Authority after winning January parliamentary elections, foreign aid paid for more than half of its annual $1.9 billion budget. But the European Union and United States said they would not fund the Palestinian government until Hamas recognized Israel, denounced terrorism and committed to the Quartet’s “Road Map” peace plan.

Hamas has refused, and the aid cutoff has hit the Palestinians’ beleaguered economy much harder than predicted. The Palestinian Authority’s 165,000 employees have gone without a paycheck for two straight months because the new Hamas-led government is broke.

When Hamas took control, it inherited severe financial problems from the previous government, led by the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The money crisis worsened significantly after Israel suspended the transfer of about $50 million in tax and customs duties collections and the United States and European Union froze direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.