Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas pledged that he will not stop paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families, even if it costs him his Presidency, it was revealed this week.
According to President Abbas’s own Fatah movement, he made the following statement: “Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary (rawatib) of a Martyr (Shahid) or a prisoner, as I am the president of the entire Palestinian people, including the prisoners, the Martyrs, the injured, the expelled, and the uprooted”.
The quote attributed to Abbas was posted by Fatah’s official Facebook page on Sunday.
Contradicting its assurances to the international community, the PA continues to pay an estimated £84 million annually to 6,500 convicted Palestinian terrorists. These monthly salaries are paid to around 5,500 convicted terrorists, ranging from £230 to as much as £2,000 for those serving a 30-year sentence.
Prisoner salaries directly reward terrorists who have killed Israelis, with higher salaries given to those who have killed more Israelis.
In 2016 the PA paid £254 million for this practice, worth 7% of its budget and 20% of its foreign aid receipts.
In separate statements, both Fatah and PLO officials have vowed that the terrorist salaries will continue unaffected by outside pressure. Spokesman for the PLO Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Hassan Abd Rabbo, according to Gaza’s Ma’an news agency, “emphasised… that it is the right of all of the prisoners and Martyrs who have struggled and sacrificed for Palestine to receive their full salaries from the PA”.
In April this year, the Palestinian Authority announced that it was cutting salaries to state employees in Gaza, while at the same time allowing the salaries it pays to terror prisoners to continue.
