A federal court in Rhode Island has ordered the freezing of all U.S.-based assets of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) after it failed to pay $116 million in damages imposed by the court last year.
The P.A. assets in the U.S., including the Palestinian Investment Fund, amount to a total of $1.3 billion.
The court order was issued after the P.A. failed to pay compensation to relatives of a Jewish couple, who were murdered by Hamas in 1996. Yaron Ungar, who was killed in the terror attack, was an American citizen. The court blamed the P.A. for sheltering Hamas activists.
The order would paralyze the Washington-based Palestinian office which represents the P.A.’s interests in the U.S., a Palestinian official told the Boston Globe.
However, it was reported that the defendants may still withdraw normal expenses from designated accounts to pay for the daily operation of their offices in New York and Washington, according to news agencies.