A document issued by the International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) is essential for terrorists serving time in Israeli prisons in order to receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority (PA) under the policy known as ‘Pay for Slay,’ an expose conducted by watchdog NGO Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reveals, quoting Palestinian officials.
The ICRC claimed in response that such documents are provided around the world as part of their humanitarian activity and denied any involvement in the PA’s stipends (see full response below).
This issue has been stipulated in PA regulations for many years despite an Israeli law that prohibits “providing incentives for terrorist activity.” Stipends paid by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian terrorists charged with committing terror attacks against Israelis have been subject to scrutiny for the past several years.
However, PMW has now revealed that one of the actors playing a key role in this process is the Red Cross, which produces the documentation necessary for terrorists to receive their salaries.
Does the Red Cross facilitate payments to prisoners?
The watchdog cites multiple sources stating that the Red Cross is the one carrying out the procedures that facilitate these payments to the terrorist prisoners. One instance shows a senior PA official responsible for the pay-for-slay payments saying on official PA television that, as a result of Israeli obstruction of visits to Palestinian terrorists by the Red Cross, the latter cannot provide them with documents showing they are still in prison, which would be necessary, according to the PA’s law and regulations, for them to receive the payments.
Another statement exposed by PMW shows Qadura Fares, head of the PLO Prisoner Affairs Authority, telling Palestinian television roughly two months ago that the International Committee of the Red Cross is “an essential partner in the process that enables the payment of rewards to the imprisoned Palestinians.”
According to PMW, by doing so, the Red Cross plays a central role in satisfying the “financial incentive for terrorist activity,” as defined by Israeli law, and can thus be held liable from the legal point of view.
PMW’s exposé revealed that to get their monthly salaries after their arrest and until sentencing, the prisoners’ relatives are required to present an original document from the Red Cross every three months attesting to their arrest and ongoing incarceration. PMW noted that the only reason the Red Cross visited these prisoners so frequently was to enable them to receive their terror salaries.
An additional regulation requires the presentation of another important document by the Red Cross, which is a power of attorney. Through this document, the prisoners can appoint a person to open a bank account or receive the payments on their behalf.
Experts: the Red Cross can and should be held accountable
Itamar Marcus, chair of PMW, criticized the Israeli government for allowing the Red Cross to openly facilitate terror payments that are illegal according to Israeli law. “This is especially jarring these days, when the Red Cross is dragging its feet on the issue of the Israeli hostages in Gaza,” he said.
“The Israeli government has been committing a gross oversight by enacting laws that curtail terror salaries on the one hand but permit the Red Cross to facilitate those illegal salaries on the other openly," he said.
“The Israeli government must notify the Red Cross that any future visits to prisoners are contingent on the Red Cross’s commitment not to supply any forms to the PA that will enable terrorists to receive the terror salaries,” added Marcus.
“Israel must further prohibit anyone, including imprisoned terrorists’ lawyers, from processing any forms on behalf of the terrorists that allow them to receive these illegal terror payments, and if necessary, enact legislation to criminalize it.”
As for the legal implications of these findings, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney, human rights activist, and president of Shurat HaDin-Israeli Law Center, explained that “the Supreme Court of Israel recently ruled that the payments to the terrorist prisoners impose tortious liability on the Palestinian Authority and that they are sufficient to require the PA to pay compensation equal to the direct damages caused to the victims of terrorism. In this case, it turns out that the Red Cross is a vital party in executing these payments, since in the absence of the mentioned quarterly documents issued on its behalf, the terrorists would not have been able to receive the said payments. This has the effect of imposing legal responsibility on the Red Cross, meaning that victims of terrorism can sue the Red Cross for terror attacks and require them to pay compensation.
Are there any known initiatives to bring the Red Cross to justice over this issue?
“At the moment, I’m not aware of any initiatives for a lawsuit against the Red Cross based on these findings, although we have filed a lawsuit against the organization for not fulfilling their duty towards the Israeli hostages,” Darshan-Leitner said.
“Throughout history, the Red Cross worked against Jews and Israelis,” she added. “This was the case during the Holocaust, when they refused to visit the Jews in extermination camps and claimed that it was an ‘internal German problem.’ This was the case with Gilad Shalit, who for five years did not get to see a single representative of the organization, and this is the case with the hostages today. Since October 7th, the Red Cross has refused to fulfill its duty according to international law and pay visits, list and specify the methods of torture they are exposed to, and hand them medicines that their lives depend on.
“Now it turns out that the Red Cross is factually complicit in inciting terrorism and providing a monetary reward for terrorism. The representatives of the Red Cross know what the forms they hand to the terrorists every three months are intended for, and therefore, they are fully complicit in the murder of Jews.”
The ICRC stated in an official response:
“The ICRC provides documents, called Attestations of Detention (AoD), which certify that an individual has been detained. This is a humanitarian activity undertaken by the ICRC in many places worldwide in line with the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Such a document in Israel is issued based on notification from the detaining authority. The ICRC is not involved in any stipend payment program involving the Palestinian Authority,” it stated.