Rep. Ed Royce called into question the international community’s funding of the Palestinian Authority and its terrorist activities. Photo: US Congress.

Palestinian terrorists are being financially rewarded for their crimes by the international community, a US lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Highlighting the issue during a budget hearing, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) said, “We should understand that beside the fact that the donor community is paying into the Palestinian Authority, the end result is to create a system to recruit human beings to carry out attacks and then serve their time and be rewarded.”

Royce stated that the Palestinian government has “an inducement to pay human assassins to seek out innocent people and kill them.” The killers are then given a stipend based on the severity of their actions. “In other words, the amount per month paid into the fund or going to the family is dependent on how heinous the crime, how many victims. And in addition…if it’s bad enough, you serve enough time and you’re automatically given a position in the Palestinian Authority once you get out,” he said.

Despite claims by Palestinian officials that this kill-for-pay system is being phased out, Royce said, he believes otherwise. “This process is not only continuing, but rather than the Palestinian Authority make the stipend directly out of the budget, what they’ve instead done is go to the PLO budget and make a transfer to the PLO,” the California lawmaker said.

According to Royce, the Palestinian Authority is using the PLO to cover up its funding to terrorists and the connections between both groups are obvious. “The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Prison…is the same ministry as the PLO. As a matter of fact, it’s the same minister,” Royce said. “What they were simply doing was transferring the entire sum over to the PLO so that the payments could continue to be made.”

The PA’s financial support of terrorists, Royce added, raises “real concerns about how we prepare people to put the foundation down for peace.”

Watch Royce’s delivery below: