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Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/EU-threatens-to-cut-Palestinian-help/2006/03/15/1142098506013.html
EU Threatens to Cut Palestinian Help
(Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald) The EU may cut back assistance to the Palestinians if attacks on EU property there and kidnappings of Westerners do not stop, a senior EU official said. External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner also criticized Israel's raid on a West Bank jail to seize a militant Palestinian leader. "I think we have to condemn this action by Israel," she told reporters after meeting Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Strasbourg. EU foreign ministers last week vowed to pursue their calls for Hamas to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist or risk seeing EU aid cut off to the PA. But the ministers were presented with an EU study showing how difficult it would be to separate essential aid to ordinary Palestinians, which it wants to maintain, from financial support to the PA.