JERUSALEM—Less than a month after the Palestinian Authority supposedly ended its longstanding payments for terrorism, the funds appeared to go out this week as usual.
The Palestinian Authority post office on Wednesday announced “the start of disbursement of financial allocations tomorrow morning … at main post offices and through ATMs.” While Palestine Post and the authority’s other official channels did not specify that the monthly payments were for terrorism, social media users were more forthright.
“The payment of salaries to the families of the martyrs, wounded, and prisoners begins on Thursday morning,” the administrator of a Telegram group for Palestinian Authority employees told his several thousand followers on Wednesday.
Palestine Post’s announcement is the clearest sign yet that the Palestinian Authority does not intend to follow through on its announced reform of “pay for slay,” as critics call the system of payments to security prisoners and the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis.
“All the talk about them changing the system—we don’t see it happening,” Itamar Marcus, the head of Palestine Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group that first flagged the post office’s announcement, told the Washington Free Beacon. “They are still paying the same terror salaries.”
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, under growing financial pressure from Israel and the Trump administration, last month decreed a reform of the system of terrorism payments, which account for a large and ballooning share of the authority’s budget. Abbas indicated that terrorists and their families would no longer receive special treatment but instead be “subject to the same standards” as other welfare recipients, who are generally compensated much less generously.
But Abbas and other Palestinian officials have since reaffirmed their support for mass murderers of Israelis in general and the terrorism payments in particular.
“We repeat and emphasize that we are proud of the sacrifice of the martyrs,” Abbas said at a meeting of his Fatah political party’s parliamentary faction two weeks ago. “Even if we only have one cent left, it will go to the prisoners and martyrs. They must receive everything as in the past, for they are more precious than all of us put together.”
Marcus noted that the Palestinian Authority generally pays salaries and benefits via bank transfers, only relying on Palestine Post to disperse the terrorism payments. The post office took on the role in 2021 after Israel, at Palestinian Media Watch’s urging, cracked down on Palestinian banks for processing the illicit funds. Since then, terrorists and their families have had to visit a post office branch or special ATM to get paid.
“If the Palestinian Authority could pay the terrorists and their families through the banks, they would,” Marcus said. “It would be much more convenient for everyone. They don’t do that because they know these are not welfare payments.”
Abbas’s office and Palestine Post did not respond to requests for comment.
