The Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Media Center quoted Israeli National Radio as reporting that the US had halted funding for the wall currently being built along Egypt's 14-kilometer border with the Gaza Strip and recalled American engineers working on the project.

According to the center, the US canceled US$500 million that had been initially allocated for the wall, deciding instead to grant the US-backed Palestinian Fatah movement US$400 million following a recent visit to the US by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The center also quoted American engineers as saying that Palestinian resistance movement Hamas--which has governed the besieged Gaza Strip since 2007--had succeeded in thwarting the project.

Emad Gad, Egyptian expert on Israeli affairs at the semi-official Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, for his part, cast doubt on the news. "It sounds like it might have been fabricated by Hamas," he said.

In a related development, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa reportedly called Hamas leaders Ismail Haniya and Khaled Meshaal to discuss recent attempts by the league to promote inter-Palestinian reconciliation.

Translated from the Arabic Edition.