Fatah spokesman admits PA keeps paying salaries to terrorists, also in the Gaza Strip
Alam Radio host: "Regarding the reforms, how many of the required reforms has the PA completed so far? Is the American administration satisfied so far with what it has completed?"
Fatah Spokesman in the Gaza Strip Mundhir Al-Hayek: "What the US is asking for regarding stopping the payment of salaries to prisoners and Martyrs (i.e., terrorists) and changing the Palestinian [school] curricula is something that unfortunately we, as Palestinians, do not accept..."
Host: "But regarding the salaries of the Martyrs and prisoners, [indeed] the payment of salaries to many of them has been stopped?"
Al-Hayek: "No, the tax money was stolen [by Israel] so that the salaries would not reach the families of the Martyrs and our prisoners and wounded. The PA does not have a budget to even pay the salaries of the [public] employees. Therefore, when Israel and the US realized there was a revolving door for paying the salaries of the Martyrs and prisoners, we did not stop the payment of salaries…"
Host: "The [PA] President [Abbas'] words regarding the salaries of the prisoners and Martyrs today were clear, and some of them [the salaries] were transferred to [the PA Ministry] for Social Development according to the institution-" …
Al-Hayak: "The PNEEI. Now we, the Palestinian leadership, are holding discussions. It is very exhausting for us, here in the Gaza Strip, because there are Martyrs, wounded, and prisoners, and their number is large. In the contacts we are making, the discussion always revolves around the method of paying the salaries. Sometimes there is something called power of attorney, where a person from Gaza authorizes a person from the West Bank to receive his salary from the institutions – the PNEEI institution and others, and the Ministry of [Social] Development – and then the salary is transferred. It is a complicated matter [making] the salaries reach the families of the Martyrs, the wounded, and the prisoners, and sometimes the salaries do not arrive… This whole matter was determined by the US and Israel so that the salaries would not reach our Martyrs – the families of our Martyrs – our wounded and our prisoners. The situation is really difficult."
[YouTube channel of the radio station "Alam", Aug. 23, 2026]