Alan Duncan, Minister of State in Britain's Department for International Development. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The British and Norwegian governments are refuting reports by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) showing they contribute funds to the salaries given to thousands of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has admitted the truth of the claim.

Britain’s Minister of State in the country’s Department for International Development (DfID) Alan Duncan said that “the second [PA] payment scheme [to prisoners] is intended to assist families in need of assistance.” Both the British and Norwegian governments say they received this information directly from the PA.

However, just recently the PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake, corroborated PMW‘s original claim, stating that the referring to the prisoners’ “salaries” as social “assistance” was a false “rumor.” The prisoners are supported “out of esteem for their sacrifice and struggle,” he said.

According to PMW, Palestinian terrorists who spend more than five years in Israeli prisons will continue receiving money even after their release. More than 4,000 now receive such permanent full monthly salaries. After the UK and Norway inquired about this, the PA admitted that its law originally stated it was paying “salaries” -“ratib.” After the inquiry they changed the wording to “assistance” – “la’ana.”

“It is true that in some cases, payments will go to families of those who have committed the sort of crime that we utterly condemn. We believe however that it would be wrong to punish innocent children and dependent family members by denying them access to social support,” Duncan said.