WASHINGTON – Democratic and Republican lawmakers aim to put strict conditions on the $350 million in aid President Bush promised last week to the Palestinian Arabs, a significant chunk of which is likely to go to the Palestinian Authority.

While the White House has offered scant details about how the money will be spent, a number of congressmen already are looking to make sure the funding will be monitored so that it is neither stolen nor diverted for terrorism.

A spokesman for Rep. Tom DeLay, a Republican of Texas, told The New York Sun yesterday that the House majority leader “shares the same priorities as the president in making sure that taxpayer dollars are not going to support terrorists or terrorist organizations and that real action is taken to stop terror on the part of the Palestinian Authority, as well as stopping to incite violence against innocent Israelis.”

Two House staffers told the Sun that Mr. DeLay’s staff is already preparing an amendment to the supplemental budget request that spells out those conditions on the Palestinian aid.

The influential ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, told the Sun that the American aid is a good idea “provided the Palestinian Authority lives up to its obligations, such as fighting terrorism, supporting the road map, and maintaining fiscal transparency.”

Mr. Lantos added, “I am not inclined to support the entire $350 million request unless Saudi Arabia and the other Arab oil-producing states that have enjoyed absurdly high windfall profits over the past year also do their part.”

“I think we need to be very careful and definitely put conditions on the money and make sure that it’s used for its intended purposes and not siphoned off in any way,” Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican of Ohio who is vice chairman of the Middle East subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, said. Mr. Chabot made his remarks during a visit to the Sun yesterday.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Sharon are expected to announce a cease-fire agreement today in Cairo, where they will meet for what is expected to be the first of many peace parleys this year. Yesterday, Secretary of State Rice named Lieutenant General William Ward, the deputy commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, as the point person for training Palestinian Arab security forces and brokering the regular contacts between the Palestinian Arab and Israeli intelligence and security services.

Before she departed Tel Aviv, Ms. Rice said yesterday that she thought the prospects for peace were brighter than they have been in years. “The United States is determined to do all that we can to take advantage of this moment of opportunity in the weeks and months ahead,” she said.

To that end, the State Department began its briefings yesterday with Congress on how it intends to spend the $350 million Mr. Bush promised in the State of the Union speech to the Palestinian Arabs. While the $150 million pledged for the 2006 budget will go to nongovernmental organizations to support a series of initiatives for improving local infrastructure and democratization, State Department officials did not say what portion of the remaining $200 million would go directly to the Palestinian Authority, according to one staffer who was briefed.

In the last two years, the president’s budget has allocated $40 million to the Palestinian Authority. Because of congressional restrictions on direct aid to that body, the money was earmarked for specific investments. Last year, most of the $20 million Congress appropriated to the Palestinian Authority went to repay debts to Israeli utility companies.

A fact sheet released by the State Department yesterday said the $200 million would go toward projects that appear intended to thwart the influence of Hamas’s social services wing. Projects to be funded include the “financing of home construction in Gaza” and “helping to improve the Palestinian social safety net to provide social services to the poor.” One project would go toward more efficient X-ray machines for the Palestinian-Arab customs service, allowing them to check goods brought into the West Bank and Gaza more quickly.

Three staffers in Congress working on this issue told the Sun yesterday that the supplemental budget would likely include direct aid to the Palestinian Authority. The State Department is scheduled to submit the details of this funding package to Congress on February 14.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of New York, today will circulate a letter urging his colleagues to support legislation that predicates further aid to the Palestinian Authority on ending terrorist attacks on Israelis. Mr. Weiner’s letter reads: “The U.S. should not write another blank check to the Palestinian Authority. We should withhold our money until the Palestinian Authority’s actions demonstrate real progress towards peace.”

In an interview, Mr. Weiner said he considered the letter a “shot across the bow” to the Bush administration. He added, “I am prepared to say we should provide aid if the tenets of the road map are met for six months or so.”

The president is likely to have more leverage with members of his own party in requesting Palestinian aid. After the State of the Union address last Wednesday, Senator Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania who is the senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Philadelphia’s KYW news radio, “I think Congress will enthusiastically grant his request for $350 million for the new Palestinian Authority to promote Mideast peace.”

A longtime supporter of Mr. Specter and the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, said his organization would launch a campaign next week to dissuade lawmakers from endorsing the $350 million aid package. Mr. Klein said he planned to place ads in major newspapers next week criticizing Mr. Abbas, featuring quotations from the Palestinian-Arab leader that incite violence and denounce Israel. Mr. Klein said he intended to include a photograph of Mr. Abbas’s graduate school thesis, which denied that the Holocaust ever happened.

“It is breathtaking that President Bush has adopted the Clinton policy of aid to the Palestinians without accountability,” Mr. Klein said. “The only difference is that Bush is giving them four times as much as Clinton.”