(JNi.media) According to Ma’an, citing the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), the Palestinian Authority this week cut the monthly salaries of more than 60 former Palestinian prisoners in Judea and Samaria. A spokesperson for the society surmised the cuts were done because of the recipients’ political affiliations, or, as he put it, they may not recognize the “legitimacy” of the Palestinian Authority.
Some former prisoners whose salaries were cut received benefits due to sicknesses they incurred while in Israeli prisons. Apparently, the PA Ministry of Finance has blocked those salaries and are requesting paperwork to prove that those recipients actually became sick in prison.
According to the PPS, proving this claim would be “very difficult.”
“These salaries come under the responsibility of the PA to take care of the people who spent several years of their lives in Israeli prisons,” the PPS spokesperson said. “It’s for their families and their children. Israel says these payments are going against peace, and the Israeli government is always pushing Europe and other foreign aid donors not to donate to the PA because they say the PA is giving money to terrorists, but we know these people are our resistance fighters and the PA is required to take care of them.”
A group of former prisoners on Wednesday staged a sit-in at the PA Ministry of Finance headquarters in Ramallah, denounced the PA’s actions and announced that they would go on a hunger strike if their salaries were not renewed, Ma’an reported.
Ama’n says that by its own law, the PA is required to pay monthly stipends to Palestinians who served time in Israeli prisons, based on a sliding scale depending on the length of time a former prisoner had served in Israeli jails. In other words, just as Israel has been claiming all along, the more Jews these men murdered, the higher their pay.
Provided they don’t deride the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority.