Abbas pledges to pay terrorist prisoners and families of dead terrorists

Abbas' speech to a J Street delegation

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "[Israel] said that... the government of the State of Palestine pays money to terrorists. Who are these terrorists? The Martyrs, the prisoners, and the wounded. From our perspective, we have been paying them, their families, since 1965. For when a person dies, I can’t abandon his family. It is important to me to take care of his family and to pay it... If we will have only 20 or 30 million shekels - and that is what is paid to the Martyrs' families – we will pay it to the Martyrs' families. If the PA won’t have a single penny aside from that, I will pay the Martyrs' families, the prisoners' families, and the families of the wounded. This must be clear."

Israel's Anti "Pay-for-Slay" Law - Israeli law stating that the PA payments to terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is a financial incentive to terror. The law instructs the state to deduct and freeze the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of "Martyrs" from the tax money Israel collects for the PA. Should the PA stop these payments for a full year, the Israeli government would have the option of giving all or part of the frozen money to the PA. The law was enacted by the Israeli Parliament on July 2, 2018. During the parliamentary vote, the law's sponsor Avi Dichter said: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee received much help in its deliberations... from Palestinian Media Watch who provided us with authentic data that enabled productive and professional deliberations, nuances that are very difficult to achieve without precise data.” [Israeli Parliament website, July 2, 2018] In accordance with the law, as of September 2021 Israel’s Security Cabinet had ordered the freeze of 1.857 billion shekels ($580.15 million) - the sum equivalent to the PA payments to terrorists in 2018, 2019, and 2020.