PLO hold international community responsible for terrorists' salaries
“Director of [PLO] Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr emphasized yesterday, Thursday [May 14, 2020], that the salaries (rawatib) of the prisoners and released prisoners cannot be harmed, and there will be no significance to the so-called Israeli military decision (refers to the application of much of Israel's Anti-Terror Law to the West Bank, including rendering banks liable to punishment for facilitating PA terror salaries -Ed.). [He said:] We are prepared to confront all of the Israeli occupation’s decisions that strive to slander our prisoners’ struggle and their sacrifice.
He added: ‘The public Palestinian position regarding the occupation’s theft and threats against the prisoners and their families is clear to everyone, because they are heroes who have sacrificed their lives for the freedom of our homeland and our people. They will not receive anything from us other than full loyalty, and no military orders of the occupation will force us to harm the national, social, and human status of them and their families.’
Abu Bakr demanded that all the banks that are active in Palestine bear responsibility towards this fighting sector and their families. [He added that] we as an entire Palestinian system must be together in the same trench, and we are receiving our instructions only from our Palestinian institutions and leadership…
Abu Bakr demanded that the international community bear its responsibility towards our prisoners, given that they are prisoners of a liberation movement to whom the international conventions apply, and that it must be more decisive in monitoring the occupation’s crimes and holding it accountable. This is because the prisoners and released prisoners and the Palestinian people in its entirety will not be silent for long over this, and the situation is liable to explode at any moment.”
Israeli army legislation which applies parts of Israel's 2016 Anti-Terror Law to the West Bank (taking effect on May 9, 2020). The law prohibits numerous terror related offenses, including terror funding/rewarding and holds heads of terror organizations responsible for murder committed by members of the organization. The law criminalizes the provision of funds for or the payment of rewards for the commission of terrorist offenses, such as the salaries the PA pays to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners. The provision also applies to any person or body - such as a bank - that facilitates such funding or rewarding of terror offenses. Based on this last provision, PMW sent letters in April 2020 to the heads of banks in the PA areas warning them that they must freeze the accounts of terrorists and their proxies and transfer them to the Israeli army or face legal consequences.