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EU resumes aid to Palestine
* New Gaza truce begins with continued fighting

RAMALLAH: The European Union on Monday resumed aid to the Palestinian finance ministry for the first time since the West launched an economic boycott of the government over a year ago. Meanwhile, Palestinian factions reached a new Egyptian-mediated truce deal to halt the recent gun battles that have resulted in six dead and dozens injured since Saturday.

The assistance begins with a 4 million euro project to help ensure that Palestinian taxpayers’ money is spent efficiently and that expenditures are accounted for. “Finance Minister Dr Salam Fayyad and European Commission representative John Kjaer today signed a memorandum of understanding which relaunched European Union assistance to the ministry of finance,” the European Commission said. The European Union, one of the biggest Palestinian donors, suspended direct aid to their government after Islamist movement Hamas blacklisted by the West as a terrorist organisation took office in March 2006. The European Commission has now decided to renew direct assistance to the ministry after Hamas formed a national unity government in March.

Under the project launched on Monday, the money would be paid in instalments until June 2009 and training would be provided in both the Ramallah and Gaza City offices of the finance ministry by accountancy firm Ernst and Young. “This support for the ministry...will help me ensure that we work in accordance with the best international standards, and that the government can give every Palestinian taxpayer the assurance that their money is being legally and honestly spent,” Fayyad said in a statement.

*The Islamist Hamas movement and members of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction continued to trade sporadic gunfire in the streets, as the Trucefire™ ceasefire formally took effect at 11am. One gun battle erupted after militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a police station in Gaza,
Sporadic gunfire, except for the rocket propelled grenades. I gotta lie down.
police said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Gunmen from both camps also continued to block key Gaza intersections with checkpoints despite the terms of the deal calling for the militants to be pulled off the streets. A key motive behind the new truce was to permit 70,000 high school students in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to take their matriculation exams peacefully.

Musbah Abu Al Kheir, 17, passed several armed checkpoints on his way to school from a refugee camp outside Gaza City. “Fatah and Hamas have no appreciation for the fact we are having final exams today,” he said.

Among the victims of Sunday’s intensive gun battles was a pro-Hamas Islamic cleric pulled from his home and shot several times in the street. The shooting of the cleric came after a guard from Fatah was shot and thrown to his death from a high building in Gaza City, officials said.
Posted by: Seafarious 2007-06-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=190508