GAZA CITY, March 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israel has emerged the first country in the region to benefit from the war on Iraq and is lined up to receive 10 billion dollars in assistance under a U.S. emergency bill to cover costs tied to the conflict.

Iraq itself will have to wait until security improves to receive goods contracted under the U.N. "oil-for-food" program, the lifeline for 60 percent of the 25 million Iraqis before its suspension on March 17, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said Friday, March 28.

U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled Tuesday, March 26, a spending request of 74.7 billion dollars to cover the war's costs, including "rewards" to 19 key U.S. allies in the Middle East and other partners in the global war on "terrorism."

On the ground in Nablus, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during an army incursion into the northern West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarem overnight, Palestinian security sources said.

They named the victim as Mohammad Ghanem, 20, and added another Palestinian was seriously wounded during the operation.

On Thursday, March 27, Israeli forces killed two members of the Palestinian security services in the Gaza Strip.

Iyad Khalil Fayad and Ihab Jarras were killed during an Israeli raid on the town of Beit Hanun that left 15 other Palestinians wounded, two of them seriously, Palestinian officials said.

Tanks backed by a helicopter gunship had launched an incursion in Beit Hanun earlier and surrounded a position of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Force-17 elite guards, wounding one of them, Palestinian security sources said.

If approved by Congress, Israel will receive the lion's share, with one billion dollars in military financing and additional loan guarantees of nine billion dollars.

Among the rewarded Arab states, Jordan stands to gain more than 1.1 billion dollars, 700 million to offset the economic effects of the war on neighboring Iraq and 406 million in military aid.

Jordan's economy is expected to suffer the most in the region for the duration of the war, as overland shipments of cut-price Iraqi oil stopped after war broke out on March 20, forcing the country to draw on its reserves.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Tuesday the kingdom would provide Jordan with oil, but "not at preferential prices."

Egypt is set to receive 300 million dollars under the U.S. war package to assist its economy with problems caused by the U.S.-led war on Iraq, of which a portion could be used to secure up to two billion dollars in loan guarantees.

War is taking a heavy toll on Egypt's tourism, the country's top hard currency earner, with industry executives reporting average hotel occupancy at 30 percent, down from the normal 80 percent for the spring season.

Bush also asked lawmakers to approve some 3.5 billion dollars in aid to "put Iraq back on its feet", including nearly half a billion for oil field repairs.

Many countries pressed for a quick U.N. humanitarian role amid warnings that a disaster was looming as 400,000 Iraqi children were suffering from chronic malnutrition even before war began, according to the U.N. children's fund UNICEF.

Germany's ambassador to the United Nations, Gunter Pleuger, said Thursday the Security Council has agreed on a draft resolution to reactivate the "oil-for-food" program that could be voted on as early as Friday.

He said passage of the resolution meant the program could be restarted "as soon as the Secretary General (Kofi Annan) decides it is safe to send people back into the region."

The program would allow Iraq to receive goods worth several billion dollars, financed with its oil exports of before March 17 but not delivered.

Part of the shipments should flow through Umm Qasr, the only deep-water port in Iraq which the invasion forces expected to clear of mines by Friday.

The United States "awarded" Monday the Seattle, Washington-based Stevedoring Services of America a 4.8-million-dollar contract to manage Umm Qasr port.

But British newspapers reported Friday sharp differences between the United States and Britain on who should run the port, the British insisting on returning it to Iraqi control.

Some British companies have also been angered by the contract process, the Independent reported, saying that the British company P and O had submitted a bid but was rejected.

Members of the Security Council also have to overcome differences on which authority, the U.S.-led invadors or the United Nations, will be in charge of post-war administration, including oil exports.

The British army said Thursday that oil exports from the Iraqi terminal of Mina al-Bakr, on the Gulf, could resume in three months once one billion dollars of repairs are carried out in Iraq's southern fields.

Seven wells were set alight in those fields, three of which have been extinguished by Kuwaiti firefighters.

The United States has granted an Iraqi oil well firefighting contract potentially worth tens of millions of dollars to a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.