The UN General Assembly late last month approved a resolution initiated by Ramallah calling on the ICJ to "render urgently an advisory opinion" on what it called was Israel's "prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory."
The Israeli Diplomatic-Security Cabinet called the move ongoing "political and legal war" and decided, among other measures, to withhold taxes and tariffs collected on behalf of and transferred to the PA, in an amount equal to that which Ramallah paid to terrorists and their families in 2022 under its infamous "pay-for-slay" policy.
The letter was signed by representatives of the Arab and Islamic countries, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, along with Western and other nations such as Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Cyprus, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.
"Regardless of each country's position on the resolution, we reject punitive measures in response to a request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, and more broadly in response to a General Assembly resolution, and call for their immediate reversal," the letter states.
In parallel, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he "notes with deep concern the recent Israeli measures against the Palestinian Authority," adding that there should "be no retaliation… in relation to the International Court of Justice."
In line with the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet decision, Jerusalem last week transferred 138.8 million shekels ($39.5 million) of revenues collected for the PA to Israeli victims of terrorism and their families.
At a press conference, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, "We promised to fix this, and today we are correcting an injustice. This is an important day for morality, for justice and for the fight against terrorism. There is no greater justice than offsetting the funds of the Authority, which acts to support terrorism, and transferring them to the families of the victims of terrorism."
For his part, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the punitive measures would "promptly lead to [the PA's] collapse." In an interview with Haaretz, Shtayyeh described the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet decision as "another nail in the Palestinian Authority's coffin, unless there is immediate intervention by the international community, namely the [Biden] administration in Washington and Arab countries."
He added, "Previous Israeli governments worked to eliminate the two-state solution, and the current government is fighting the Palestinian Authority itself."
US State Department spokesman Ned Price described the step aimed at curbing and punishing Palestinian terrorism as a "unilateral move" that "exacerbates tensions."
The PA pays monthly stipends to Palestinians, and/or their families, for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. In 2021, the PA paid out an estimated 512 million shekels ($157 million) as part of this "pay for slay" policy.
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