The Palestinian Authority has continued making payments to terrorists and their families, despite promises to end the pay-for-slay programs, the US State Department informed Congress last month, the department confirmed on Wednesday.
A total of $156 million was paid out to the families, a fraction of the $214 million the PA promised to distribute to them. $126 million went directly to Palestinian terrorists, including those released from Israeli custody, and $30 million to the families of Palestinian terrorists who died committing their acts of terrorism.
“The PA continues to provide a system of compensation in support of terrorism through new mechanisms and under a different name,” the State Department wrote in the report, based on information provided by Jerusalem, open source information, and NGOs.
Payments continued despite Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas legislating changes to the West Bank’s welfare system last year, shifting payments to a needs-based model rather than stipends scaled to the length of a terrorist’s sentence.
“Despite changing the mechanisms, the PA continued payments and benefits to Palestinian terrorists and their families,” the State Department wrote.
Under the Taylor Force Act (2018), Washington is unable to offer economic aid to Ramallah until it ends pay-for-slay payments and its statements of public support for terrorism.
The PA’s payments to terrorists, including those who have killed American citizens, have continued despite the rapidly deteriorating economic crisis in the West Bank. The Jerusalem Post reported earlier this week on strikes planned in hospitals over the PA cutting wages to only $650 for April, down from the 80% it has been paying out since tax revenue began being withheld in 2022.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced earlier this week that approximately NIS 590 million was deducted from the PA to cover both debts to the Israel Electric Corporation and water and environmental corporations, as well as funds that the PA had transferred to terrorists.
Citing comments made by Palestinian officials after the Bondi Beach attack in Australia, IMPACT-se reports on antisemitic and pro-terrorist content in the PA education system and PA officials honoring terrorists released into Egypt. The report determined Ramallah had failed to end its pro-terror ideological positioning.
PLO publishes list of prisoners who have yet to receive pay-to-slay salary
PA Finance Minister Estephan Salameh’s February statement, “we have not abandoned any Palestinian resident, whether they are prisoners or families of martyrs and wounded. This is a clear fundamental issue,” was also cited in the report as evidence that Ramallah has continued to fail in meeting the requirements to receive US funds.
In January, as was reported by the Israel-based research institute Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs had published a list of 52 released Palestinian prisoners who needed to take administrative steps in order to continue or begin receiving monthly salaries from the PA/PLO.
The terrorists listed included Ahmad Dahidi, an orchestrator of the 2003 murder of Eli Biton; Ahmad Abu Awad and Ahmad Al-Shibani, terrorists implicated in constructing the bomb for the 2003 Afula mall suicide bombing; and Saed Zaid, a terrorist implicated in the 2003 shooting of Amit Mintin.
PMW director Itamar Marcus told the Post that the organization was able to track PA funds reaching terrorists in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, not just the West Bank.
“The PA’s distorted values are apparent in the way it prioritizes supporting terrorists over the most important segments of Palestinian society. Because of its pay-for-slay program, it has lost so much funding that it has not paid its own employees their full salaries for five years,” Marcus highlighted.
“In the past, PA teachers struck for almost a year, and now doctors are striking. In addition, social welfare payments for needy families are a fraction of what they have been giving for years to terrorists in prison, who have no ongoing expenses. Until the PA stops rewarding terrorists and openly declares that the murderers of Israeli civilians are terrorists and not heroes, any talk about Palestinian Authority reform is pure dishonesty.”