PLO official admits the PA is paying full terrorist salaries – also amid financial crisis when others get half

Independent Palestinian news agency Ma’an host: [You’ve said] “I will quit if the allowances are not paid.” In other words, if the [PA] Ministry of Finance does not pay the allowances of the [PLO] Commission [of Prisoners’ Affairs], even partly… Director of PLO”

Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr: “We have the canteen [expenses] that are paid monthly to the prisoners. They are being paid, and also on the first of the current month [of September] they transferred the canteen [expenses] to us… The prisoners’ allowances are also being paid…”

Host: “The prisoners’ issues need to be at the top of everyone’s priorities, even in a matter such as their allowance payments. Do you think that the prisoners’ cause is being neglected and is no longer at the top of the priorities regarding the monetary allowances paid to them?”

Qadri Abu Bakr: “No, I don’t think so and the proof of this is that even when the Israelis cancelled the allowances, a full salary was paid to them. A 100% salary was paid to the prisoners, while the [public] employees received half a salary.”

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.