More Free Money for Palis

They just never learn.

Middle East envoy Tony Blair plans to announce on Monday projects designed to bolster the Palestinian economy, including one in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Western and Palestinian officials said.

The announcement by the former British prime minister comes a week ahead of a U.S.-sponsored peace conference meant to launch long-stalled talks on Palestinian statehood and bolster President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.

Western and Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity on Sunday, said the projects were meant to quickly create jobs and boost economic activity.

Western officials said the decision to include a sewage project in Gaza was part of a new outreach effort to the coastal strip's 1.5 million residents.

Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction still dominates the occupied West Bank, wants to regain control of Gaza but it is unclear how he will be able to do so.

Israel has tightened its economic and military cordon around Gaza since June and has escalated threats to invade the territory in response to Palestinian rocket fire.

"From our point of view, this is a humanitarian question," Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Israeli coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said of the Gaza sewage project.

Dror said Israel's only concern was that certain types of metal piping could be used by militants to fashion rockets. Dror said alternative types of piping could be used.

I'm sure this will just endear everyone to the peaceful Palestinians.