PA continues ‘pay-for-slay,’ especially abroad, despite claims of reform

The Palestinian Authority’s attempt to throw off Western scrutiny by claiming it has ended pay-for-slay suffered another setback after beneficiaries on Monday celebrated receiving the payments.

Families living abroad received their full payments from the “Martyr’s Fund,” the program which provides monthly stipends for attacks against Israelis, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israeli watchdog group. Payments typically go to the families of the terrorists.

“Jordan salaries have officially entered the bank—for released prisoners and wounded. Praise Allah,” one recipient said, according to PMW. Another asked: “How much did you get, at what rate? As before or reduced?” The reply: “As before.”

Ironically, families of terrorists living abroad, in places like Jordan and Lebanon, are receiving full payment while those within the P.A. territories do not. This is because pay-for-slay transfers inside the P.A. are under closer scrutiny from Western donor countries.

The P.A. still hasn’t figured out how to transfer money to terrorists within its territory without European donors spotting it, Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.

Under pressure to stop pay-for-slay, the P.A. announced in February of last year that it would no longer make such payments through its Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. Instead, payments would go through a new body, the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI) under the Ministry of Social Development.

The P.A. claimed pay-for-slay had ended because Palestinian prisoners would not receive money for their actions but solely based on their socioeconomic status. Although the PMW showed at the time that this was a transparent attempt to fool Western donors, some Western journalists accepted the P.A.’s claim that it had reformed.

Even with the changes, the United States and European Union can still monitor what’s going on within the P.A., forcing it to reduce money transfers to make its promise of reform appear legitimate. There were even protests in Ramallah on Monday by recipients who hadn’t received their full payments, according to Marcus.

But the situation is different abroad. As donor countries aren’t able to scrutinize what’s happening, the P.A. feels free to continue the payments uninterrupted. Each month, it sends money to its Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) “embassies” around the world, which appears in the budget as a vague line item marked “PLO orgs.”

That money is then transferred to local Commission of Detainees’ offices in places like Jordan, which continue to function despite the P.A.’s “reform,” and where there are large numbers of former terrorist families, said Marcus.

In 2025, the P.A. sent abroad to PLO offices “transfer expenses,” the category under which terrorists are paid, totaling 269,434,600 shekels (~$86 million). That averages to 22.5 million shekels (~$7 million) a month, said Marcus.

In 2017, the last year it provided detailed budget statistics, the P.A. said it paid terror stipends to 13,500 families living abroad. That comes to 18.9 million shekels (~$6 million).

The 2025 monthly figure of 22.5 million shekels is a “very logical increase” over an eight-year period, he said.

Marcus arrived at the 18.9 million figure for 2017 by multiplying the amount the P.A. pays monthly to a terrorist’s family—1,400 shekels (~$450)—by the number of families. A terrorist’s family receives more than 1,400 shekels if there is a wife and children involved. On top of the 1,400, families receive 400 shekels (~$125) for a wife and 200 shekels (~$65) for each child.

“The number we arrived at is a minimum. The actual number is probably much higher,” said Marcus.

Terrorists themselves receive far more, but there aren’t too many terrorists abroad, he said, estimating that number at a couple hundred when combining the prisoner exchanges over the years.

One such terrorist is Ahlam Tamimi, who was initially released to Egypt as part of the Shalit deal in 2011, in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was exchanged for 1,027 prisoners.

Tamimi now lives in Jordan. She received 6,000 shekels (~$2,000) on Monday, said Marcus.

Tamimi helped plan and engineer the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001, which killed 16 people, including three Americans.

Arnold and Frimet Roth, whose daughter Malka, 15, was one of the American citizens killed in the attack, have been working for years to get Tamimi extradited to the United States from Jordan to face justice.

In 2013, the United States charged Tamimi with participating in the attack. She is at the top of the FBI’s “Most Wanted” terrorist list. The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program has offered up to $5 million for information leading to her arrest.

Although Tamimi identifies with the rival Hamas organization, she still receives a P.A. stipend. “According to P.A. law, every single terrorist, no matter their affiliation, whether it’s Hamas or Islamic Jihad, who is arrested, in their words, by the ‘occupation’ or for ‘resisting the occupation,’ receives a salary,” Marcus explained.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry expressed its outrage in a social media post on Wednesday. “This is pay-for-slay,” it said. “The PA is still paying $2,000 a month to Ahlam Tamimi—the terrorist who orchestrated the Sbarro bombing in 2001.”

A video attached to the post shows Tamimi beaming as she learns from an Israeli interviewer that she had low-balled the number of children killed in the attack; that it was eight, not three as she had thought. (Tamimi picked the Sbarro location because it was lively with schoolchildren on vacation.)

Marcus said he had shared the information with Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department, which has shown intense interest in the PA’s pay-for-slay program. He expects the United States will alert the P.A. that it is aware of the continuing payments abroad and will pressure it to stop making them.

According to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, the Palestinian Authority must end all financial and moral support for terrorism, including any payments or benefits to terrorists or their families.

“Shifting these payments to a welfare system does not count. Palestinian terrorists must stop receiving any type of salaries or benefits as a direct result of their acts of terrorism,” a U.S. Embassy spokesperson told JNS.

The P.A. also must stop its incitement, glorification of violence, support for terrorism and refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist in its education system, the spokesperson said.

© JNS