By RIA Novosti
Tel Aviv : Israel is considering the transfer of frozen tax revenues to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas now that he has broken with radical Islamists in the Palestinian National Authority's (PNA) coalition government, a local newspaper said Friday.
Israel has withheld some US$50 million monthly from the PNA to boycott the radical Islamist group Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the US, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted political sources in Jerusalem as saying that Abbas' decision to form a new Cabinet replacing the current power-sharing agreement with Hamas had removed obstacles to the transfer.
The president declared a state of emergency and dissolved the government Thursday after six days of bloody gun battles between the warring factions left Hamas fighters in control of Gaza.
Israel, which has refused any contacts with Hamas, is also to decide on further action against the 1.3 million-strong Palestinian exclave. Gaza is heavily dependent on fresh water and electricity supplies from Israel and humanitarian and commercial cargoes transiting the Jewish state.
The latest developments in Gaza have provoked international alarm, with the possibility of violence spreading to the Fatah-dominated West Bank. There is a strong likelihood that the Palestinian territories will undergo a permanent split into an isolated Hamas-led Islamic state in Gaza and a Fatah-led state in the West Bank, with Western backing.
The European Union has meanwhile suspended its remaining aid projects in Gaza.