October 21, 2024:
A year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks out of Gaza killed over a thousand Israelis and some foreigners, the Palestinian Authority, or PA, continued using its Pay For Slay program to reward Hamas members who were killed or wounded during this operation. Since October 2023, the PA declared nearly 10,000 imprisoned Palestinian and Hamas terrorists as eligible for Pay for Slay money. The PA also recognized an additional 39,000 families of dead terrorists as eligible for Pay for Slay payments.
The PA has long used foreign aid money to run their pay-for-slay program. Since the 1970s the PA has diverted nearly half a billion dollars in foreign aid to pay Palestinian terrorists for killing Israeli civilians and soldiers. There is an elaborate system for paying the families of dead Palestinian terrorists as well as lesser payments for those imprisoned for attacks on Israelis. Foreign donors eventually learned of this program, which used money donated for the welfare of Palestinian civilians. Donors tried to enforce rules prohibiting use of cash for pay-for-slay programs. The PA keeps finding ways to circumvent these restrictions and continue making terrorism profitable for Palestinians. PA leaders take a portion of the aid for themselves as a reward for continuing to deceive foreign donors.
In 2019 the Palestinian Fatah government threatened to cause an economic catastrophe by refusing partial payments from Israel and donor nations unless everyone stopped deducting the money Fatah spends on supporting and encouraging terrorist activity. In 2018 Israel passed a law to deduct Pay For Slay payments from the $130 million a month it collects in taxes and fees for the Palestinians in the West Bank. Despite that Fatah paid over $20 million to Palestinian terrorists in prison or to their families for deceased terrorists. The U.S. had already enacted a similar law and was deducting a similar amount from the $300 million it currently gives to the West Bank Palestinians. Other foreign donors have taken similar measures.
Fatah complains that the U.S., Israel and other donors are being unfair. Yet it is no secret that many Palestinians become terrorists because they are attracted to the financial rewards, which are considerable for many impoverished Palestinians impoverished by Fatah corruption and incompetence. Palestinians who are jailed, injured or killed while trying to kill Israelis receive large payments from Fatah. For example families of dead terrorists get an immediate payment of $1,700 from Fatah plus monthly payments for the life of the immediate family. These monthly payments consist of $400 to over $1,000 depending on the number of wives and children and can make a family relatively affluent and open new opportunities, like enough cash to afford a people smuggler who can get one or more family members to the West. There is also a bonus of $86 a month if you are a legal resident of Israel and a similar monthly bonus if you were a resident of Jerusalem. Fatah currently pays about $200 million a year to the families of over 26,000 dead terrorists as well as smaller payments to 6,000 badly injured while trying to kill Israelis.
Monthly payments to jailed Palestinians vary according to how long they have been in jail, how many dependents they have and so on. There are also bonuses for how many Israelis the prisoner killed or injured. Some of these convicts get over $50,000 a year. Fatah currently spends nearly $200 million a year to reward over 6,000 jailed terrorists. Fatah considers this payment program a success even though hundreds of Palestinians have died in the Fatah-promoted violence. These attacks also left a growing number of Israelis dead and for Fatah that is political gold as far as Arab language media is concerned.
With this approach, Fatah and Hamas together currently spend over $400 million a year to make murder economically attractive to many young Palestinians. Most of it comes from Fatah although Hamas is trying to make more payments to Palestinians in the West Bank who support Hamas and attack Israelis in the name of Hamas. The Arab language media throughout the Middle East take for granted that these payments are just and necessary for the war against Israel.
In response to the current American and Israeli efforts to penalize Fatah for what is spent to encourage terror attacks, Fatah made it clear it would not halt payments to families for dead or jailed terrorists. Instead, it cut pay to Palestinians who worked for the West Bank government. But by refusing foreign aid money still being offered, Fatah causes shortages of food and other necessities in the West Bank. The ensuing Palestinian outrage and resulting damage are blamed on the efforts to halt pay for slay terrorism support.
Fatah is pleading with Russia and Arab oil states to help them out. Russia is broke and prefers to be on good terms with Israel. The Arab oil states are fed up with the Palestinian preference for self-destructive behavior. When the PA cannot obtain the needed Pay for Slay cash from the usual sources, it records missed payments as debts that must eventually be paid. Pay for Slay is an essential PA program because it brings in more Palestinian men willing to die for money. Families receiving the money honor their dead benefactors for a long time.