Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a leadership meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman

On Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced a new system of payments, which was supposed to be based on welfare needs and not as a reward to terrorists:

The Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI) announces the payment of financial allowances within the Social Protection and Care Program, starting from Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, through authorized payment centers.

However, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has confirmed that payments were made via the PA post offices, as in the past, indicating that the post offices are the aforementioned “authorized payment centers.”

The PA’s post office ATMs are exclusively for paying terror salaries and allowances, as stated in an official announcement last year by the PLO:

Our people, families of the Martyrs and injured in the West Bank … on the subject of the payment of allowances for the families of Martyrs and injured … We call on the recipients of the funds to withdraw the large amounts that have accumulated for them at the post office, including the current allowance …

As we have emphasized before, the post office is not a regular bank like other banks and cannot hold funds, but is only a means of transferring allowances, and the funds cannot be held for a long period in the accounts of the recipients …

We wish mercy for the souls of the martyrs, recovery for the wounded, and freedom for the prisoners. [emphasis added]

[PLO Martyrs’ Families and Injured Care Establishment, Feb, 2024]

The PNEEI announcement above, stating that payments were made “through authorized payment centers,” was possibly its attempt to hide that the payments were made through the post offices, which are exclusively used for paying terrorists.

PMW has confirmed that families of prisoners and “Martyrs” have received payments through post offices as in the past.

Earlier this week, an online news site reported that it had received information from the Palestinian Authority indicating that the PA had stopped rewarding imprisoned terrorists and terrorist Martyrs’ families as in the past, but had moved them to a new welfare-based system, according to The Times of Israel.

The article also claimed that the “Welfare payments, which are now distributed by the extra-governmental PNEEI, have not yet been issued.” These payments, according to the article, would have been the payments to imprisoned terrorists and “Martyrs'” families.

However, the claim that PNEEI payments were not made this month openly contradicts PNEEI’s own announcement on its website that payments were made on Thursday. As stated, PMW has confirmed terror payments were made last Thursday at the post offices.

There were additional inaccuracies as well in the article, including a prominent mistake, defining PNEEI as “extra-governmental.”

Below are pictures and bios of all the PNEEI board members as they appear on its website. As can be seen, 10 of the 11 board members are employed in senior PA government positions, including one minister and six undersecretaries. Only one is an academic. Moreover, PNEEI answers to Mahmoud Abbas.​

With senior government officers as board members, the article’s defining PNEEI as “extra-governmental” is another clear example of publishing PA claims without doing the minimal investigation to verify them.

Especially on a politically sensitive topic, such as the PA’s terror rewards, one would expect more careful journalism before publishing the PA’s claim to have reformed.

The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.