The Palestinian Authority’s 2017 budget to inmates in Israeli prisons – many of whom are convicted of terror offences – and payment to families of Palestinian terrorists, amounts to half of the foreign aid budget support that Ramallah expects to receive this year, a recently published report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has shown.
The PA Finance Ministry’s 2017 budget, published last month, has revealed that salaries to incarcerated and released Palestinian prisoners, will amount to $153.4 million in 2017 – an increase of 13 percent over the 2016 budget.
The total allocation to Palestinian prisoners and ex-prisoners, as well as martyrs’ families, in the 2017 budget is $344,313,451 – equal to 49.6% of the funds the PA expects foreign donors to contribute to its budget over the year.
The new budget also allocates $190,869,166 for payments to so-called “families of martyrs” – up from $174,630,296 allocated in 2016.
The families are defined as those with members who were “killed or wounded in the struggle against Zionism”, including those killed while committing attacks against Israelis, or in any other context by an Israeli.
The news follows PA President Abbas’s pledge to continue paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families, even if it costs him his Presidency, contradicting its assurances to the international community.
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.
Click here to read more about the report in the Times of Israel.
