The Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Ramallah sent a defiant message to the United States and Israel on Monday regarding its support for terrorists and their families.
Yusuf al-Mahmoud, spokesman for the PA government, said in this context that "there is no force in the world that can cause us to renounce our prisoners and the martyrs."
He said Israel bore full responsibility for the situation of the Palestinian Arabs and claimed that it was "stealing their money on the pretext of offsetting tax revenues."
Last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu instructed Meir Shabbat, chief of Israel’s National Security Council, to deduct money from the taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in order to pay for the damage from fires caused by Gazan rioter-terrorists sending kites attached to firebombs into Israeli territory.
Last week, Gazan terrorists burned 75 acres in a single day. On Saturday alone, the terror kites sparked 17 fires.
The PA regularly pays terrorists who are imprisoned in Israel, as well as families of dead terrorists who carried out attacks against Israelis. The PA policy of paying higher salaries to terrorists serving longer sentences means that the more heinous the and deadly the terror attack, the more the terrorist is rewarded by the PA for committing murder.
According to Palestinian Authority figures, the monthly allowance per prisoner is higher than that of an active member of the PA security forces. The PA budget for payments to terrorists in Israeli prisons skyrocketed to $158 million in 2017.
Despite calls from both Israel and the United States to stop the practice of paying terrorists, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly stressed that “families of the martyrs will continue to receive their allowances in full."
