The Palestinian Authority is still making payments to terrorists and their families, despite promises to end the “pay for slay” programs, the US State Department reported Wednesday. It informed Congress last month, it said.
A total of $156 million was paid out to the terrorists and their families, the report said. $126m. was paid to Palestinian terrorists, including those released from Israeli custody, and $30m. was paid to the families of Palestinian terrorists who died committing their acts of terrorism. The PA had promised to give the families a total of $214m.
“The PA continues to provide a system of compensation in support of terrorism through new mechanisms and under a different name,” the State Department reported. The report cited information provided by the Israeli government, open-source information, and NGOs.
Payments continued despite PA 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 reported.
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. Earlier this week, The Jerusalem Post reported on strikes planned in hospitals over the PA cutting wages to $650 for April, compared with the 80% wages it has been paying out since tax revenues began being withheld in 2022.
About NIS 590m. 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, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reported this week.
The report cited comments made by Palestinian officials after the Bondi Beach terrorist 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. As a result, Ramallah had failed to end its pro-terrorism ideological positioning, the report said.
PLO publishes list of prisoners who have yet to receive pay-to-slay salary
In February, PA Finance Minister Estephan Salameh said: “We have not abandoned any Palestinian resident, whether they are prisoners, or families of martyrs, and wounded. This is a clear fundamental issue.” The report cited his statement as evidence that Ramallah has continued to fail in meeting the requirements to receive US funds.
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 to continue or begin receiving monthly salaries from the PA/PLO, the Israel-based research institute Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported in January.
The list 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 suicide bombing in an Afula mall; and Saed Zaid, a terrorist implicated in the 2003 shooting of Amit Mintin.
PMW was able to track PA funds reaching terrorists in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, not just the West Bank, said Itamar Marcus, founder and director of PMW.
“The PA’s distorted values are apparent in the way it prioritizes supporting terrorists over the most important segments of Palestinian society,” he told the Post. “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.
“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,” Marcus said.