On Sunday night, an official Palestinian delegation met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, in an unannounced meeting, and asked him for a serious American position on the political and financial issues, warning that the recent unprecedented Israeli measures, especially the confiscation of customs transfers, threaten the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.

According to diplomatic sources, the delegation, which included Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein Al-Sheikh, Prime Minister Dr. Muhammad Mustafa, and Presidential Diplomatic Advisor Dr. Magdi Al-Khalidi, asked Sullivan to exert immediate and serious pressure to stop the confiscation of Palestinian customs funds, and not be satisfied with diplomatic invitations.

Customs revenues constitute about 70% of the Palestinian Authority’s revenues.

Since 2019, Israel has been deducting large sums of money from these revenues, which in the months following the war on Gaza reached more than 50%.

Last month, the Israeli Ministry of Finance confiscated all customs transfers, amounting to about $200 million. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the Palestinian Authority, which he described as “terrorist,” must be dissolved.

These measures led to the inability of the Palestinian government to pay the salaries of its employees and its local obligations.

In recent months, the Palestinian government obtained loans to pay parts of employees’ salaries, which led to the accumulation of local and foreign debts estimated at more than $11 billion.

The Palestinian delegation demanded a serious American stance in order to stop the Israeli war on Gaza, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and the return of the Palestinian government to the Gaza Strip to carry out its responsibilities in providing relief to citizens, and rebuilding the infrastructure necessary to provide basic services to citizens, such as water, electricity, sanitation, and others.

The delegation also called on the American side to stop opposing Palestine’s access to full membership in the United Nations, and to frustrate repeated Palestinian requests in this regard, considering the passage of such a resolution in the UN Security Council, without America using its veto, as an essential measure on the path to a solution. The policy based on the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.

The sources said that the American official repeated Washington's traditional position calling for stopping the Israeli war, conducting a prisoner exchange, returning the Palestinian Authority to administering the Gaza Strip, stopping the deduction and withholding of customs funds, and launching a political process based on a reliable path to establishing an independent Palestinian state.