EU warns Palestinian violence may disrupt EU help

STRASBOURG, France, Mar 14 (Reuters) The European Union may cut back assistance to the Palestinians if attacks on EU property there and kidnappings of Westerners today do not stop, a senior EU official said.

''If this were to go on, of course, there would be a breakdown of our help and the first that would suffer would be the Palestinians themselves,'' EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told Reuters before a meeting in Strasbourg with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

She was speaking after the seizure by Israeli forces of a Palestinian militant leader from a West Bank jail prompted kidnappings by militants of at least nine foreigners in the territory and attacks on a building used by the EU in Gaza.

The EU helps monitor the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and mentors Palestinian police. It also supplies annual aid worth 500 million euros (9 million) to the Palestinians.

Reuters SK VP0228