"We call on Israel to take the necessary measures to ensure that banking services between Israeli and Palestinian banks continue to operate," the finance ministers of the world's richest countries said in a draft final communique, seen by AFP. The appeal came after Israel this week threatened to bar Palestinian banks from access to its own banking system, a move that has caused deep concern in Washington. "Cutting off Palestinian banks from their Israeli counterparts would create a humanitarian crisis," US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is in Stresa, said Thursday, and who has written to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue. "These banking channels are essential for carrying out transactions that enable roughly $8 billion in imports from Israel, including electricity, water, fuel, and food, and facilitate roughly $2 billion in exports each year, on which Palestinians rely for their livelihoods," she said. In their draft final statement, the G7 finance ministers called for "the continuation of vital financial transactions and essential trade and services". They also called on Israel to "release withheld tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, given their urgent fiscal needs". Israel collects customs duties on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, which it is supposed to then transfer under the terms of the Oslo Accords signed in 1994. However, after an October 7 attack, Israel stopped transferring the full amount of these customs duties, saying it refused to finance the Islamist movement Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a "terrorist organisation". Finally, the G7 ministers called on Israel to "withdraw or ease other measures that have had a negative impact on trade, in order to avoid further exacerbating the economic situation in the West Bank". Read Also: More than a million cases of infectious diseases during the Gaza conflict (Portuguese version)