PLO director of prisoners assures terrorist salaries will continue

Official PA TV program "Topic of the Day"

Official PA TV host: “The Israeli Parliament’s decision will come into effect regarding deducting the salaries of the prisoners and Martyrs from the taxes. How are you responding to this matter, and what are your steps
against it?” …
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr: “The prisoners, the released [prisoners], and their families can rest assured - as [PA] President [Abbas] has said: Even if we have only a penny left it will be spent on them. They are like all of the [public] employees. In other words, they will not be affected. What will be affected of course is the PA’s budget, because the salaries are approximately 1 billion [Israeli] shekels a year that we pay.
Of course, there are efforts… In other words, we are continuing these efforts and exposing the disgrace of [the Israelis’] policy. We sat with the Red Cross and said to them: When [the Israelis] want to stop the salaries of the political prisoners and their families- these salaries are actually to his family and not to him personally. Inside the prisons they allow the prisoner 1,200 shekels – his salary could be 1,500 to 2,000 shekels and the rest goes to his family. While they [the Israelis] want to prevent the salary to his family, they pay and take care of the families of the criminals that are among them, the criminals that are among them, for murder, cannabis, and the like – they take care of them. Even the murderer of [former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin, [Yigal Amir,] they take care of him and he lives as if he were in a hotel and they take care of his family (sic., Amir is not being given special treatment; he has spent more than 16 years in solitary confinement).”
Click to view video

Law to deduct terrorist salaries from PA tax money - 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 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]