According to recent reports, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is seeking to avoid scrutiny from international donors by hiding the funds it uses to pay monthly salaries to convicted Palestinian terrorists and their families.
The Palestinian Authority openly listed these payments in 2018 and 2019 as expenditures of the PA Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs, but since the start of 2020 there is no listing in this category. Reports indicate that the PA is trying to hide the payments by listing them under a different category: “PLO institutions”. Payments to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) have increased by the equivalent amount previously allocated to the Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs.
The findings were published by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which confirmed that “the PA is continuing to fund the salaries to terrorists but is listing it, not as a direct PA expense, but hiding it under the PLO expenditures”. PMW explained the reasoning behind this change: “As a recipient of international funding, the PA is obligated by donor countries to show full transparency and publicly list all its expenses, whereas the PLO is not accountable to anyone for how it spends its money”.
In 2014, following threats from international donors to cut aid to the PA due to this practice, the PA made a similar attempt to hide its payments but reverted to openly listing the expenditure in 2018.
Palestinian laws passed in 2004 and amended in 2013 state that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who are convicted of attacks in Israel (“participation in the struggle against the occupation”) are entitled to monthly salaries commencing with their arrest (and continuing for life for men who serve at least five years and women who serve at least two), along with additional cash grants and priority civil-service job placements upon their release.
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 2019 the PA is believed to have paid over £250 million for this practice, worth around 7% of its budget and an astonishing 40% of its foreign aid receipts.
In July 2017, PA President Mahmoud Abbas pledged that he will not stop paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families, even if it costs him his Presidency.
