Despite claiming to be operating at a 172% budget deficit, the Palestinian Authority recently recognized 899 new prisoners from Gaza and tens of thousands more Gaza “martyrs” as eligible for controversial “pay for slay” payouts, according to a report released by Palestinian Media Watch on Wednesday.
According to the Jerusalem-based watchdog’s figures, the PA is now committing itself to paying out more than 60 million shekels ($16.2 million) a month to an overall 9,750 terrorist prisoners. Stipends for “martyrs” will take longer to process before any disbursements are made. Israel says the payouts incentivize terror attacks.
“What does that say about their budgetary priorities regarding pay for slay?” PMW founder and director Itamar Marcus told The Press Service of Israel. “Now with that budget squeeze, and yet they still continue to pay terrorists. What does that tell you?”
Marcus was referring to a PA Cabinet statement on Tuesday which said the PA budget would operate at a 172% deficit. The statement added that PA revenues will shrink by 21% because of the war. The PA’s public sector workers have not received full salaries for two years, and Ramallah’s austerity budget will continue that — but stipends to imprisoned terrorists will continue in full.
“We showed that the Palestinian Authority was only paying salaries of 50 to 60 percent each month to its workers, and yet through that whole period, it continued paying 100% to the terrorists in prison,” Marcus explained.
“They’ve created this ideology that the prisoners are the highest priority, nothing else matters, and they don’t care what happens to the rest of the budget. And the other thing here, and this is critical, the international community keeps bailing them out.”
PA Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa announced on July 3 that the World Bank Board of Directors increased an annual grant provided to Ramallah from approximately $70 million to $300 million per year.
An Unprecedented Legal Petition
PMW’s report comes on the heels of an unprecedented PA petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice to reverse legislation allowing victims of PA Arab terror to more easily claim financial compensation from the PA. The Palestinian Authority has never petitioned Israel’s High Court before.
In a blistering response filed with the High Court, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara wrote that the PA “pays every year, by virtue of a series of laws it legislated, massive sums to those who were involved in acts of terrorism.”
She further argued, “It cannot be considered appropriate that a court in Israel would open its gates to the Palestinian Authority and hear its arguments about the supposed injury to its constitutional rights, while it continues with its abhorrent and disgraceful policy.”
PMW also found that the PA now recognizes 578 new “martyrs” since October 7 in areas of Judea and Samaria under its jurisdiction, and also “recognizes the reports by the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza, which have listed 38,983 Martyrs since October 7,” the report said.
“The families of the 578 new Martyrs from PA-controlled territory plus those of the 38,983 new Martyrs from Hamas-controlled territory are also all eligible to receive a one-time immediate grant of 6,000 shekels [$1,640] and a monthly allowance for life of 1,400 shekels [$382]. This makes for a one-time reward that would total 237,366,000 shekels (about $65.4 million) and a minimum of 54,576,200 shekels (about $15 million) per month, once the new Martyrs are processed,” the report found.
“After the previous Gaza war with Hamas, it took the PA a number of years to process and start payment. Even if the PA is unable to get payment to the families of the Gaza Martyrs right away, it will be registered as a debt,” it added.
The Palestinian Authority allocates seven percent of its annual budget for its so-called “Martyr’s Fund,” which provides stipends to Arab terrorists in Israeli prisons, and the families of terrorists killed in attacks. The size of the monthly payouts is primarily determined by the duration of the terrorist’s incarceration, with a negligible additional factor based on family size
Ramallah has been paying out stipends for years, but the issue came under a spotlight following the murder of Taylor Force, a U.S. citizen killed by a PA Arab who went on a stabbing rampage in Jaffa in 2018. Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which halted U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority as long as terror stipends are being paid out.
U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority resumed under the administration of President Joe Biden. In December 2022, American victims of Palestinian terror filed a lawsuit against the President and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arguing that the payments violate the Taylor Force Act.
