{"id":273606,"date":"2026-09-01T21:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/273606\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T21:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:16:11","slug":"staving-off-crisis-israeli-banks-reach-agreement-to-keep-working-with-palestinian-counterparts-through-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/273606\/","title":{"rendered":"Staving Off Crisis, Israeli Banks Reach Agreement to Keep Working With Palestinian Counterparts Through 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel’s next government will need to find a solution that will allow Israeli banks to continue \u200cworking with their Palestinian counterparts after a deal was reached to continue services until the end of 2026, a senior Bank of Israel official said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Two Israeli banks had been set to halt working with Palestinian banks \u2014 Israel Discount Bank opens new tab on September 1 and Bank Hapoalim opens new tab in a month \u2014 due to concerns over the risks of associating with possible terrorism financing and money laundering<\/a>. But after negotiations with the Finance Ministry, the banks have agreed to delay severing ties until the end of \u20602026, Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Andrew Abir said.<\/p>\n

\"Bank\"BankClose<\/p>\n

Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Andrew Abir in his office in Jerusalem, July 8, 2020. Credit: Ammar Awad\/ REUTERS<\/p>\n

Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Andrew Abir in his office in Jerusalem, July 8, 2020. Credit: Ammar Awad\/ REUTERS<\/p>\n

“Then, it will be an issue for the new government to decide who should be carrying on that burden of the business of correspondent banking with Palestinian banks,” he told Reuters. “The deadline has been pushed off.”<\/p>\n

\"Elex<\/a><\/p>\n

Discount and Hapoalim have been providing correspondent services with Palestinian banks through a series of indemnity waivers signed by Israel’s finance minister.<\/p>\n

The current minister, Bezalel Smotrich, oversees the waiver mechanism that enables cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks. He is against a Palestinian state and has been opposed to signing waivers but has relented on that issue several times due to U.S. and Israeli government pressure.<\/p>\n

Related Articles<\/p>\n

The waiver lets Israeli banks process shekel \u200cpayments for \u2060services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority<\/a> without the risk of being charged with money laundering and funding terrorism. Without it, Palestinian banks would be cut off from the Israeli financial system.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Monetary Authority estimates that Discount and Hapoalim process 51 billion shekels ($17 billion) a year in transactions for the PA while 90 percent of Palestinian trade \u2014 such as food, fuel and medicines \u2014 passes through Israel.<\/p>\n

“The long-term solution is to get a \u2060permanent agent who will provide correspondent bank services between Palestinian and Israeli banks, whether that’s Bank Hapoalim and Discount continuing or whether it’s a government company that will take over for them. But some form of permanent player to carry out correspondent banking needs to be settled upon,” Abir \u2060said.<\/p>\n

In July, Yahya Shunnar, governor of the PMA<\/a>, said that over the past decade the PA had built up its anti-money laundering framework to international standards. The United States and the UK, he said, assessed that the PA’s “counter-terrorism financing practices meet or exceed international \u2060standards when the concern raised is financial integrity risks.”<\/p>\n

When asked whether the PA could shift to another currency other than the shekel, Abir said it was not likely since “the Palestinian economy is so interlinked with the Israeli economy that, for all purposes, the shekel is the obvious choice of currency that they use.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel’s next government will need to find a solution that will allow Israeli banks to continue \u200cworking with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[15111,1412,37,5941,4486,1685,17077,2253],"class_list":["post-273606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-bank-of-israel","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-israel","tag-israel-u-s","tag-israel-economy","tag-israel-palestine","tag-palestinian-authority","tag-palestinians"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117197864461634966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}