The scene of a stabbing in Jaffa that security services suspect may have been a terror attack, Nov. 21, 2021. Photo: Israel Police.

At times, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has tried to excuse or hide the terror salaries it pays to imprisoned terrorists, arguing that the money is for the needy families who have lost their main and sometimes only breadwinner.

But Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that only the terrorists have control over the money, not the relatives, and that the family will only have access to the money if the terrorist decides to transfer it.

A recent interview with the daughter of a terrorist prisoner again supports this conclusion. The daughter explained that her imprisoned father began transferring his “monthly salary” from the PA to her as soon as he heard she was getting married:

Aya, daughter of prisoner Fawaz Ba’arah: “Ever since I set the date of my wedding, [dad] has been putting in his monthly salary [from the PA] in order to pay for my wedding present with it.”

[Official PA TV, “Giants of Endurance,” June 30, 2022]

In 2013, PMW published a rare interview with the wife of a prisoner who chose not to transfer his salary to her but gave it to other relatives.

Then PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake, openly admitted that “the current procedure in the Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs is that the prisoner determines who has the power of attorney … he gives the power of attorney to whomever he wants from [among his] first-degree relatives to receive his monetary allowances.”

In the past, PMW provided 12 different reasons to entirely debunk the PA claim that the terrorist salaries are a form of social welfare. The reasons given were:

1. PA law defines the payments to prisoners as salaries.

2. PA officials and prisoners’ representatives deny that salaries are social welfare.

3. Prisoners, and not their families, have complete control over the transfer of the salaries.

4. Salaries rise based on years spent in prison and not based on financial need.

5. Social welfare considerations add only small payments to the base salary.

6. Salaries to prisoners are treated with the same status as salaries to civil servants.

7. Prisoners pay income tax on their salaries, like all government employees.

8. Prisoners’ salaries are higher than salaries of PA civil servants.

9. Payments to families of terrorist “Martyrs” are higher than social welfare for those in need.

10. Released prisoners continue to receive monthly salaries.

11. PA officials openly declare that prisoners receive salaries because they are “heroes.”

12. Released prisoner demanded undiminished salary because: “I personally killed Jews.”

This is the truth about Palestinian terror payments; their only purpose is to reward the murder of Jewish civilians.

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.