PA officials: Agreeing to Israel's deduction of money we pay prisoners, will be admitting they are “terrorists”
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr: "We have been paying salaries to [the prisoners] for more than 53 years…"
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "The issue of the families of the Martyrs and the prisoners is at the top of our list of priorities, and any amount [of money] we have will be earmarked for them…"
Qadri Abu Bakr: "These Martyrs and prisoners are the best of our people…
If we agree to the deducting of this money (i.e., sum equivalent to PA terror salaries), it means that we agree that they are truly a group of terrorists – murderers, as Israel calls them. We would be defining their struggle as a crime, and defining as a crime our people’s struggles for more than 50 years of struggle…"
PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh: "If we agree, there will be a political consequence for our children in the prisons, in the sense that we agree that they committed an act of terror, and we will not agree to this…
If we agree to this, the PA will be subject to lawsuits in the Israeli, international, and American courts for funding terror."
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