RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank: France announced Monday it would donate 10 million euros ($14.3 million) to the Palestinian Authority after Israel froze tax revenue transfers following a Palestinian unity agreement.

The aid infusion came as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told reporters his government was unable to pay employees because of Israel’s decision to halt revenue transfers after Fatah and Hamas inked a unity deal.

The French Foreign Ministry criticized Israel for suspending transfer of Palestinian money after the Fatah Movement signed a surprise unity deal with rival Islamist group Hamas.

“At a moment when the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority is stretched, these funds are a contribution to the payment of government employees’ salaries,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero in Paris.

Valero criticized Israel’s decision to not “transfer to the Palestinian Authority tax revenue to which it has a right.”

He said Israel’s decision was “detrimental to the reforms and the establishment of institutions put in place under the authority’s President [Mahmoud] Abbas.”

The aid infusion was formalized at a signing ceremony between Fayyad and France’s Jerusalem Consul-General Frederic Desagneaux in Ramallah Monday. “This payment intervenes in a critical moment and we hope it will have an inducive effect for it is important that the donor countries pursue their efforts in budgetary aid in favor of the Palestinian Authority,” Desagneaux said in a statement.

The European Union announced last week it would offer the Palestinian Authority an additional 85 million euros in aid after Israel blocked the transfer of tax revenue in the wake of the unity agreement.

Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had ordered the suspension of the revenue transfers until he could be sure that none of the funds would go to Hamas. But his decision to suspend the transfers has been criticized inside Israel and abroad.

Valero welcomed the EU’s decision Monday to offer the Palestinian Authority additional aid, after Palestinian officials warned they would be unable to pay employee salaries without the tax revenues.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said in an interview published Monday that Abbas is still a partner for peace with Israel despite his unity deal with Hamas.

Abbas is “absolutely” still a peace partner “because he wants to hold negotiations for peace with Israel,” Peres told the Jerusalem Post, saying the Palestinian leader “opposes violence and he wants peace.”

The president’s stance is at odds with that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has told Abbas to choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas.

Peres told the paper he had “criticized” Abbas over the surprise deal which was signed last week and aims at ending four years of bitter rivalry, but that it “doesn’t free me of the need to talk with him.”

He also told the paper the Palestinian bid to seek U.N. recognition of an independent state would not end the conflict if it was not linked to Israel’s security needs.