PA Education Ministry celebrates Prisoner’s Day at Jenin high school, Deputy Governor supports prisoners’ salaries
Headline: “Marking Prisoner’s Day in the Faqqua High School for Girls”
“The Jenin Education Directorate (i.e., branch of the PA Ministry of Education) yesterday, Thursday [April 18, 2019], marked Palestinian Prisoner’s Day in the Faqqua High School for Girls east of Jenin.
Jenin District Deputy Governor Mansour Al-Sa’adi praised the role of the Education Directorate and the teaching staff in educating the students about the national identity, and protecting them from the plots being woven against our cause and national project.
He called on the masses of our people to stand firm and to unite around our legal leadership, and mentioned [PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas’] honorable standpoints towards the prisoners and their cause, the latest of which was his insistence on paying what the prisoners and Martyrs’ relatives are entitled to, even if [only] one penny remains in the Palestinian national coffers (refers to Abbas’ response to Israeli Anti “Pay-for-Slay” Law to deduct terrorist salaries; see note below –Ed.).”
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.