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GAZA CITY - Oil-rich Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have pledged 80 million dollars in aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, finance minister Omar Abdelrazek said Monday.
"We have received pledges from the Arab world that will help us operate for several months," the minister said on the Internet website of the Islamist movement Hamas.
"Twenty million dollars from Saudi Arabia, 40 million dollars from Kuwait and 20 million dollars from the UAE are to be transferred," he said.
"We will not collapse despite the war being waged against us by the racist Zionists, by the United States and the European Union," said the finance minister in the cash-strapped government.
Abdelrazek said earlier Monday that the government still faced a 120 million dollar monthly budget shortfall, despite having received 35 million dollars from Algeria.
Western governments which have long bankrolled the Palestinian government have cut off aid unless Hamas, fresh off a stunning January poll win, renounces violence and recognizes Israel.
But Hamas has refused to bend to international demands, and has instead appealed to Arab countries to fill the budget shortfalls.
"It has to be from the Arab countries," Abdulrazeq told AFP, but he said there would be no contact with Iran. "We received 35 millions dollars from Algeria so far."
He added that his government needed 118 million dollars to pay employees' March salaries, and an additional 35 million dollars for operating costs.
European Union governments on Monday endorsed the suspension of direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, the bloc's Austrian presidency said, while denying charges from Hamas that the funding cut amounted to "blackmail."
The executive arm of the EU -- the biggest donor of Palestinian aid with 500 million euros (605 million dollars) a year -- announced the aid suspension last Friday.
04/10/2006 18:49 GMT
