US drops grants requirement

Jerusalem: Israel said yesterday the United States was lifting a ban on US funding of Israeli scientific research projects conducted in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.

The move was announced a week before a US presidential election in which opinion polls show incumbent Donald Trump, hailed by Israel as one of its staunchest allies, trailing Democrat Joe Biden.

Previously, projects receiving US grants could not be carried out in areas that came under Israeli administration in the 1967 war. — Reuters