The PA Continues to Lie and Reward Terrorists in “Pay-For-Slay”

On December 27, 2004, the Palestinian Authority (PA) adopted the “Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners number 19 of 2004.” The law, which applies exclusively to terrorists, stipulates that the terrorists are the “fighting sector and an integral part of the fabric of the Arab Palestinian society” and that the PA is prohibited “from signing or participating in the signing of a peace agreement to resolve the Palestinian problem without releasing all the prisoners.” Having unequivocally announced the PA’s devotion to the terrorists, the law then enacted a substantial part of the PA’s terror-promoting, terror-incentivizing, and terror-rewarding “Pay-for-Slay” policy.

Rewarding The Terrorist Prisoners

In paragraph 7 of the law, the PA committed to paying every prisoner a “monthly salary.” Soon after the law was enacted, the PA also adopted regulations to facilitate its implementation. One of the regulations dealt mainly with the different PA payments to the terrorist prisoners. ¹ This regulation entrenched the idea, among other provisions, that the salary the PA would pay to the terrorist prisoners would rise with time spent in prison. Another of the regulations dealt mainly with the released terrorists. ² This regulation entrenched the idea, among others, that every released terrorist would be guaranteed a position in the different PA bodies.³

The payments were defined as “salaries,” as opposed to “allowances” or social welfare benefits, reflecting the PA’s approach that the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners are all employees, or agents, of the PA.

Every terrorist, without discrimination, whether they belonged to Fatah (including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades), Hamas (including Izz-al-Din Al-Qassam), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (including the Al-Quds Brigades), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or any other terrorist organization, is entitled to a salary. The law even included provisions ensuring preferential treatment for women terrorists.

Based on these provisions, since the law was enacted, the PA has spent hundreds of millions of shekels/dollars/euros every year promoting and incentivizing terror and rewarding terrorist prisoners.

Rewarding The Families of Dead Terrorists

In addition to the PA payments to the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners mandated and entrenched by the Law of Prisoners, the PA also pays hundreds of millions of shekels/dollars/euros to injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists.

As opposed to the payments to the terrorist prisoners and released terrorists, the PA payments to the injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists are regulated by internal regulations of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The recipients of these payments include, among others, the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists killed while carrying out attacks.

In contrast to the “salary” payments to the terrorist prisoners and released terrorists, the PA payments to the injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists are defined as “allowances.”

Cumulatively, the payments to the terrorist prisoners, released terrorists, injured terrorists, and the families of dead terrorists are known as the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” policy.

Calculating The PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” Payments in 2025

Accurately calculating the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” payments in any given year is almost impossible. This reality is a result of several different factors.

The PA does its utmost to conceal all the payments. While the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” policy is infamous around the world and has, in some years, accounted for almost 7.5% of the PA’s entire operational budget, the payments are entirely conflated and hidden in the financial reports published by the PA.

At one stage, those financial reports did include specific budgetary provisions for the PA’s Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs. However, since 2019, that Ministry has disappeared.

The payments to the injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists are paid through the PLO, a body with zero transparency, and have usually been hidden in the PA allocations for social welfare payments.

In addition to the payments to the terrorist prisoners, released terrorists, injured terrorists, and the families of dead terrorists, the “Pay-for-Slay” policy also encompasses a myriad other benefits to be enjoyed by the family members of the terrorists. These benefits include reduced payments for services such as health and education, among others, whose cost is borne by the relevant ministries. Additional benefits for the veteran terrorists also include the right to purchase new cars tax-free.⁴

Furthermore, in the PA’s attempts to conceal the full extent of payments, the PA has “retired” some of the terrorists entitled to “Pay-for-Slay” payments and they now receive their benefits as part of the PA’s retirement payments.

Another category of terrorists not covered by the regular “Pay-for-Slay” payments is the terrorists who were already employees of the PA when they committed their offenses. These terrorists, who some claim account for more than 10% of the terrorist prisoners, continue, according to the PA regulations, to receive their salaries from the ministries for which they worked when arrested.

Thus, even full access to the PA payments directly to the terrorist prisoners, released terrorists, injured terrorists, and the families of dead terrorists would be insufficient to calculate the total payments.

Having said that, on rare occasions, the PA has “slipped” and quantified at least some of the “Pay-for-Slay” payments.

In 2021, the PA claimed that its direct payments to the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners were at least 600 million shekels.⁵

In 2018, the PA budget allocated 687 million shekels, which included payments to the injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists.⁶

The PA’s 2025 Financial Difficulties

However, in 2025, the PA experienced substantial financial difficulties. For years, the PA had enjoyed both substantial income from the taxes Israel collects and transfers to the PA, which accounts for 65%-70% of the PA’s operational income, and extensive international aid.

In 2025, the PA’s income from taxes dropped for several reasons.

As it has done since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Israel continued to deduct approximately 275 million shekels a month, a sum that the PA used to spend in the Gaza Strip before the massacre.

The more substantial drop came in June 2025, when Israel stopped transferring all of the tax income to the PA. The decision came, coincidentally or not, after the governments of the UK, Canada, Australia, and others decided to impose personal sanctions on Israel’s Minister of Finance for allegedly “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.”⁷

The fact that the relevant governments had never sanctioned PA officials for either outright incitement to murder Jews or even for the multi-billion dollar/pound/euro “Pay-for-Slay” policy demonstrated the sheer hypocrisy of their decision.

In addition, as the war in Gaza continued, many countries preferred to allocate their aid to support the humanitarian effort in Gaza, in favor of donating those funds to the PA.

The PA’s Attempt to Fool the World

In February 2025, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas signed a “decree with force of law” (for almost two decades, the PA has been a de facto dictatorship in which Abbas holds supreme legislative power) that ostensibly abolished the “Pay-for-Slay” payments. The fanfare surrounding the move immediately conquered the hearts of the willfully gullible, including world leaders and the international press. Commentators, who know and understand the depth of the PA commitment to reward the terrorists, were much more cautious and warned against buying into the deception.

The force of the decree was immediately undermined by Abbas himself when, just days after issuing it, he repeated his commitment to keep paying the terrorists: ”If we had one penny left, it will go to the martyrs and prisoners. They will receive their full payments as in the past. We are proud of their sacrifices.”⁸

After repeated reports exposed the PA’s continued payments to the terrorists,⁹ despite the provisions of the “decree with force of law,” but in line with Abbas’s statements, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, started raising the subject in every one of his meetings with his counterparts.¹⁰

The critical mass of the reports, amplified by Minister Sa’ar, eventually forced the PA and Abbas to admit, in November 2025, that the PA payments to the terrorists had indeed continued.¹¹ The admission was cloaked in a statement issued by Abbas in which he ostensibly reiterated that “We affirm the strict commitment to implementing the provisions of Law No. (4) of 2025 [sic. The decree with force of law that was never implemented] and warn against any violation or obstruction of its requirements.” It was also accompanied by Abbas’s sacking of the PA Minister of Finance for allegedly authorizing the continued payments to the terrorists without authority. ¹²

PA Prioritizes Terror Rewards Over Everything Else

In normal circumstances, a severe financial squeeze would force any organization or authority to reconsider its priorities. This would certainly be the case for an organization that exists and is reliant, almost entirely, on external funding. The PA, however, is not a rational body. Instead of prioritizing the best interests of law-abiding Palestinians, in 2025, the PA actually increased its terror reward payment, in comparison to 2024.

As Minister Sa’ar noted in a November 19, 2025, post on X,¹³ in 2024, the PA paid $144 million (€124 million) in terror rewards, “In 2025, it has already committed 214M dollars (€185M) toward Pay-for-Slay, and the year isn’t even over.”

While spending $214 million is unquestionably outrageous, for the reasons noted above, among others, it must be assumed that even this figure falls short of the full extent of the PA’s expenditure to promote, incentivize, and reward terror.

A Word of Caution

In 2018, Israel passed legislation to penalize the PA for its “Pay-for-Slay” policy.¹⁴ According to the law, at the end of each year, Israel’s Minister of Defense compiles a report quantifying the PA’s terror reward payments in the passing year. While the law anticipated a report that would indeed quantify the full extent of the payments, in practice, the Minister of Defense’s reports have consistently included sums far lower than the actual payments.

The reports themselves even noted that intelligence gathering deficiencies prevented a comprehensive reckoning. More than anything else, the reports reflected the extreme, some would argue overly extreme, limitations the Ministry of Defense adopted to prepare the reports.

Accordingly, it would not be surprising if the sums set in the Minister of Defense’s 2025 report differ from the sums mentioned above.

Final Comment

For two decades, Abbas has been the pillar and foundation stone of the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” policy. While some will no doubt argue that if Abbas ever leaves the PA, the “Pay-for-Slay” policy would actually end, that approach should be entirely rejected.

As part of his dictatorial rule of the PA, a few months ago, Abbas decreed¹⁵ that if he becomes incapable of fulfilling his duties, his PLO deputy, Hussein Al-Sheikh, would replace him. Aside from being a terrorist himself,¹⁶ Al-Sheikh has continuously stipulated his commitment to the terrorists and the continuation of the terror reward payments.¹⁷

* * *

Notes