Israel Sends Promised $100 Million To Abbas

JERUSALEM, Jan. 19 -- Israel released $100 million in tax revenue Friday to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, fulfilling Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's pledge last month to do so.

Olmert agreed to transfer the money in a meeting with Abbas, a relative moderate, as a way of strengthening his position in a political struggle with the rival Hamas movement. Israel continues to hold more than $400 million in sales and customs revenue that it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority under an agreement reached as part of the 1993 Oslo accords.

Israel stopped making the monthly tax transfers after Hamas won parliamentary elections a year ago, giving it day-to-day control of the Palestinian Authority. The radical Islamic movement does not recognize Israel, and the international aid boycott that followed its election has crippled the Palestinian government.

The $100 million is equal to about two months of tax transfers, and falls short of covering one month of the Palestinian Authority's payroll. It is being transferred directly to accounts controlled by Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and a leader of the Fatah movement, to avoid the Hamas-run Finance Ministry.

Olmert also pledged to eliminate some of the hundreds of checkpoints and obstacles to movement in the West Bank, some of which have been removed in recent days.

Meanwhile, Israel said Friday that it had halted plans to build a new West Bank settlement, the Associated Press reported.