PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas threatened yesterday to take Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if tax revenues owed to Ramallah were not paid in full.

Taxes are collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority from residents of the occupied West Bank.

With some irony, the case would be Palestine’s first since it joined the ICC in January, in revenge for which Israel stopped handing over the tax revenue.

Israel finally agreed to transfer the money last Friday, but Mr Abbas said that only two-thirds of the amount owed had been released after deductions for “services” Israel provided to Palestinians living under occupation.

“We will not take the money until we get all of it — either you give us the full amount or we go to the ICC,” Mr Abbas warned Tel Aviv.

He noted that the tax issue would now stand as a case for the court to investigate alongside Israel’s war against the Gaza Strip last year, which killed over 2,000 Palestinians, and the continuing growth of illegal settlements.

Israel had come under pressure from Washington to hand over the money, which the Palestinian Authority requires in order to pay its 180,000 employees.

Relations between the US and Israel have deteriorated since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu breached diplomatic protocol to address the US Congress with strong criticism of President Barack Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The White House also reprimanded Mr Netanyahu for using racist rhetoric during his re-election campaign last month, when he warned that Arab citizens of Israel were voting “in droves.”

But Mr Obama reaffirmed the countries’ close alliance yesterday, stating that “if anyone messes with Israel, America will be there.”

The rapprochement could be bad news for Mr Abbas, who has also faced the vitriol of Hamas, the organisation which governs the besieged Gaza Strip, for failing to protect Palestinian refugees living in Syria.

Residents of the Yarmouk refugee camp have been forced to leave their homes as the Islamic State terror group has taken over.

Syrian government forces helped about 2,000 refugees to to reach safety in the Zahira district, which remains under Damascus’s control, over the weekend.