Israel will ask the United States for US$2.2 billion, one of the largest aid requests by the Jewish state, to pay for its planned withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli political sources said yesterday.

They said the special funding would be used to pay for the pullout from Gaza and a corner of the West Bank slated to begin in the middle of next month, and to relocate some 9,000 evacuated Jewish settlers to underpopulated areas of Israel.

A senior Israeli political source said the US aid request was the biggest in recent years, "which is hardly surprising given the unprecedented scale of the Disengagement Plan."

Israel's Haaretz daily said the request would be made by aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in talks with US National Security Council official Elliot Abrams yesterday evening local time.

The Bush administration has agreed in principle to help fund the Gaza plan, Haaretz said. Washington wants the withdrawals to consolidate a five-month-old truce and spur talks on a US-led "roadmap" for a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

When Israel held peace negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians in 2000, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak asked the United States for US$20 billion to cover any required Israeli withdrawals. But the talks stalled and the request was scrapped.

Also yesterday, a senior Palestinian official said that there was no arrangement for a meeting between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters that the Palestinian National Authority basically did not receive any invitation by Israel to arrange such a meeting.

(China Daily July 12, 2005)