German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is discussing the future role of the Palestinian Authority (PA) with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, with an eye toward reforming the PA.
Before the meeting with Mustafa on Tuesday, Baerbock had Oliver Owcza, head of the German Representative Office for Palestine in Ramallah, show her the situation in the West Bank and the border area with Israel.
Critics accuse the right-wing extremist sections of the Israeli government of wanting to strangle the PA by cutting Israeli payments to the body. As a result, some salaries of PA employees can no longer be paid.
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also recently announced that he wanted to withhold funds totalling $32.5 million from the PA and use that money to pay Israeli terror victims instead.
At the Herzliya Security Conference near Tel Aviv on Monday, Baerbock condemned these measures.
"In the current situation, it’s dangerous and self-defeating to destroy and destabilize established PA structures," she said.
She said if the PA wants to assume the role of the legitimate governing authority in Gaza at some point, it had to be in a position to back its legitimacy - including with police and security forces.
Baerbock also plans to meet with her counterpart Israel Katz in Jerusalem. Against the backdrop of growing concerns about an escalation of the conflict between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, Baerbock will fly on to Lebanon in the afternoon.
