Newly released documents reveal that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been paying monthly salaries totaling hundreds of thousands of pounds to convicted Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel, with the majority of the recipients being members of the Hamas terror group. The documents were released this week by Israel Radio and confirmed by officials linked to the PA, which is one of the world’s largest recipients of international aid. The payments are evidence that the PA is promoting and supporting terrorism.
Recipients of the money included terrorists responsible for dozens of murders, among them Abdullah Barghouti, a Hamas bomb-maker serving 67 life sentences, and Ibrahim Hamad, a former head of Hamas’ military operations in the West Bank serving 54 life sentences.
Barghouti has received almost $43,000 from the PA fund and Hamad received $34,000.
Both Bargouti and Hamad were involved in some of the worst suicide bombings of the second intifada, including the bombings at a cafeteria at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on July 31, 2002, the Sbarro restaurant bombing in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001 and a nightclub bombing in Rishon Lezion on May 7, 2002.
Israeli government sources said that, while knowledge of these payments is “nothing new”, it clearly shows that the PA provides economic incentives for carrying out terrorist acts. According to the source, those who sit in jail for longer periods of time get more money, meaning that “the more gruesome the terrorism, the more money will be paid”.
According to documents obtained by Israel Radio, most of those behind bars receiving money from the PA are Hamas members who were behind some of the bloodiest terrorist attacks of the second intifada. Those receiving these PA ‘salaries’ are all serving time in maximum-security prisons for the crimes they committed.
The news emerged amid a wave of violent terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank, which have targeted Israeli civilians and has renewed criticism of the PA for its incitement to violence against Israelis.
The spike in terror incidents occurred almost immediately after a United Nations speech by PA President Mahmoud Abbas last week that the Israeli government had branded as “incitement”. Within the speech, President Abbas stated that the Palestinians were no longer bound by the Oslo Accords. Top Palestinian officials, including Abbas, have failed to condemn the attacks.
