RAMALLAH – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for his decision to channel $100 million to Palestine. “President Abbas thanked the Saudi King for his generous donation,” the official Wafa news agency said. The report said that Abbas Wednesday received a phone call from the Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf who “informed him of a decision by King Abdullah... to transfer $100 million (75 million euros) to the budget of the state of Palestine.” The decision comes at a time when the state budget is suffering from a severe deficit due to the Israeli government's seizure of Palestinian funds as punishment for Palestine becoming a UN non-member observer state. The confiscated 450 million Israeli shekels (some $120 million) have been used to pay Palestine's debts to the Israel Electric Corporation. Abbas has threatened to take action against the Israeli government at the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the tax revenues are not released. The transfer of the Saudi funds will enable the Palestinian government to pay part of the salaries of its 147,000 civil and military employees who have not been paid for the past two months. The Palestinian Finance Ministry says it needs $150 million monthly to pay salaries. On Sunday, Fayyad met Arab League members in Cairo to discuss ways to implement the “financial safety net.” Arab League foreign ministers decided to dispatch a delegation to the region to raise the funds.
