"Ask Zelenskyy:" UAE rebuffs Israeli PM’s request

Emirati president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed has rebuffed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request.

Netanyahu requested to pay "unemployment" stipends to Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank whom Israel barred from entering its territory after the October 7 Hamas attack, an Israeli official and a source familiar with the issue told Axios.

"Ask Zelenskyy for money," Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed sarcastically told Netanyahu.

"The notion that Arab countries will come in to rebuild and pay the bill for what's currently happening is wishful thinking," an Emirati official said.

Shortly after the Hamas attack, the Israeli government imposed a closure on the occupied West Bank for what it said were security reasons. That meant that the more than 100,000 Palestinians who lived in the West Bank but worked in Israel before the war could not enter Israeli territory.

The worsening Palestinian economy and growing unemployment due to the war have heightened concerns among the Israeli security establishment and the Biden administration that such conditions could lead to a violent escalation in the West Bank.