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Abbas declares Israeli legislation won’t stop him from paying terrorists

PA head Mahmoud Abbas announced that an Israeli law withholding Palestinian tax revenues would not deter him from continuing to pay salaries to terrorists and their families.

By: JNS.org

In a meeting with Fatah Party leaders on Sunday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would not stop paying salaries to convicted terrorists and their families, despite new Israeli legislation withholding funds in the amount paid to killers and attackers from taxes collected for the P.A.

“We will not allow anyone to interfere with the money that Israel is against us paying to the families of martyrs and prisoners,” Abbas said, in a transcript released by the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

He said that the P.A. would continue to give salaries to those who participated in terror attacks against Jews, as it has done since 1965.

On July 2, Israel’s Knesset passed legislation that would subtract the amount used by the P.A. to fund terrorists from tax monies collected for the P.A. by Israel and transfer the funds to organizations that provide assistance to victims of terror.

The 2018 P.A. budget included NIS 1.287 million ($340 million) to be paid to terrorists in Israeli jails, as well as to the families of Arabs who died committing acts of terror against Israelis.

Payments for terrorists are issued monthly, with those receiving sentences of three to five years being allocated 2,000 shekels ($566) a month and those receiving 20-year to 35-year sentences earning 10,000 shekels ($2829) per month for life. Married terrorists get a bonus of 300 shekels ($85) per month, with an additional 50 shekels ($14) monthly per child.

Terrorists with Israeli citizenship or Jerusalem residency are given additional bonuses.

Abbas also stressed that new attempts to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority led by U.S. President Donald Trump will fail, saying that Palestinians “will not let the ‘Deal of the Century’ work.”