PLO official: We will continue to pay salaries to terrorists
Headline: “Fatah Revolutionary Council members: We will deal with the plot against the national project through our unity”
“Director of [PLO] Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners' Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr emphasized the leadership and our people’s ability to thwart the effects of the American administration’s pressure on some Arab states, which has come in conjunction with decisions and laws by the Israeli occupation state against the leadership in order to put an end to its loyalty to the prisoners and their relatives (refers to Israeli law deducting terror salaries from taxes Israel collects for the PA; see note below –Ed.), and said: ‘We will not relinquish our basic principles.’
Abu Bakr commented on what was said in [PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas’] speech, because he emphasized the commitment to pay salaries (rawatib) to the prisoners, and that a clear Palestinian decision will be made regarding all of the political and economic agreements that were signed with the occupation government if it starts to deduct the amounts allocated to the prisoners from the Palestinian tax money.”
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.