New Confirmations that Making Agreements with PA and Hamas Are Fools’ Errands

Recent developments corroborate what we have believed all along, that the Palestinians – whether it be the Palestinian Authority or Hamas – cannot be trusted to meaningfully negotiate with Israel.

For years, the international community clung to the notion that there was a possibility that the Palestinians could be incentivized to reform and conclude a real agreement with Israel in the West Bank. Indeed, the almost universal mantra was that peace would break out if only Israel would make more and more one-sided concessions.

In February 2025, in the face of pressure from the United States and angling for a governing role in post-war Gaza, PA President Mahmoud Abbas issued a much-ballyhooed presidential decree that purported to abolish the so-called Martyr’s Fund which provided stipends to convicted terrorists and the families of slain terrorists. The international community welcomed this as a sign that the PA was on the road to reform.

However, the evidence is now in that it was all about smoke and mirrors, not reform. Rather than ending the program, Abbas simply moved the payment mechanisms out of the original Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and into different agencies such as the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution and the Palestinian postal system.

And despite Abbas’s declaration to the UN General Assembly that the Martyr’s Fund was replaced by a needs-based social welfare system, intelligence and investigative tracking confirm that the rewards for terrorism have continued:

A U.S. State Department report compiled through January 2026 revealed that the PA distributed roughly $156 million in terror stipends in 2025 alone. The State Department further documented that the PA provided direct financial payouts to convicted terrorists who were released from Israeli prisons.

According to findings by watchdog groups like Palestinian Media Watch and various European investigators, the PA has routinely utilized the local postal system to continue to distribute, under the radar, the same level of financial assistance as “pay for slay” as before.

Further, despite reassuring the international community with reform-sounding rhetoric, just days after a recent such effort he was recorded as telling internal audiences that if the PA had “one penny left, it would still be given entirely to the “prisoners and the martyrs.”

So, the PA is far from winding down its terror incentive infrastructure. In fact, its spending in this connection is projected to soon reach $315 million annually.

In Gaza the duplicity over Hamas’s key role in the humanitarian aid deficits was long denied by the Palestinians and the international community, all of whom instinctively blamed Israel. But hopefully, the United Nations’ recent public condemnation of Hamas for systematically obstructing and violently disrupting humanitarian aid to Gaza will shift the blame to where it belongs. By finally acknowledging that the “de facto authorities” are endangering humanitarian personnel and hijacking distribution networks the UN has confirmed that the primary barrier to civilian relief in Gaza is the very terrorist group claiming to govern them.

The shift in the UN followed an incident earlier this month at the World Food Programme Abu Rashid distribution center in Jabalia. Armed men tied directly to Hamas forcibly stormed the food depot, intimidated workers and assaulted truck drivers. The assault forced a total halt to emergency food distribution in northern Gaza.

Significantly, UN Deputy Special Coordinator Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov said that this and other such incidents were “not isolated,” but form an “increasingly dangerous pattern of intimidation, violence and obstruction.” For years warnings that this was the reality in Gaza were dismissed as “baseless” or treated as Israeli propaganda. So this acknowledgement has been a long time in coming but is a promising step forward nonetheless.

In sum, both the PA and Hamas have demonstrated that they cannot be part of post-war governance. The “pay for slay” and Jabaliya incidents must mark the end of the UN’s policy of appeasement in Gaza and the West Bank. The international community can no longer accept the fiction that Palestinian leadership is interested in peace with Israel.