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Israel to slash PA tax funds as pay-for-slay law takes effect

Israel is preparing to deduct the amount that the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists and their families from tax revenues Israel collects and transfers to the Palestinians.

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday morning that tax funds slated to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA) will be reduced based on figures the PA released reflecting its salaries to terrorists and the families of those killed while committing terror-related crimes.

Israel is taking these steps to comply with a law passed in July requiring the government to deduct funds from the PA based on its policy of terror stipends, which increase in proportion to the heinousness of the crime.

The tax revenue is collected by Israel on behalf of the PA and is transferred to Ramallah on a regular basis under the terms of the Oslo Accords.

The new law requires Israel to obtain data on PA’s annual expenditures for terror salaries, which amounted to NIS 1.2 billion in both 2017 and 2018, and to deduct those amounts from transfers to the PA.

According to the PA, it will refuse all transfers moving forward if Israel makes the deductions, which could cost the hobbled Palestinian government around $100 million each month.

Israel passed the terror salary legislation after the U.S. instituted a law called the Taylor Force Act, which denies the Palestinians aid unless the PA ceases pay-for-slay payments. The law was named for an American student who was murdered in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian terrorist on a vicious stabbing rampage.