The PA still has "no comprehensive solutions” for evading Israeli law and paying terrorists' salaries, admits PLO official
Headline: “Abu Bakr: There are no comprehensive solutions on the topic of the prisoners’ salaries as of now”
“Director of [PLO] Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr said today, Saturday [March 6, 2021], that great efforts are being made to pay the salaries of the Palestinian prisoners and released prisoners as soon as possible (refers to measures to evade 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.).
In statements monitored by [the Palestinian news agency] Sada News,Abu Bakr explained that three months have been paid in advance to the prisoners, and that the period has not ended yet.Efforts are being made by the Palestinian [PA] presidency and [PA] Prime Minister [Muhammad Shtayyeh] to find alternatives for payment. He noted that the salaries to the prisoners will be paid whether inside prison or outside of it at the first opportunity, [but] there are no comprehensive solutions for this issue as of now.
Regarding dividing the [released] prisoners among the PA’s civil and military institutions, he said that there is a joint committee comprised of an expert team from the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, national insurance, the Tanzim (i.e., Fatah terror faction), the directorate, and the General Personnel Council, which is working on this issue.
Abu Bakr noted that the committee includes more than 60 employees who are working to sort the cases, and that a good part of the work has been done on this process.”
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.