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PA asks UN for identical sum it gives to terrorists

The Palestinian Authority requested $350 million in humanitarian aid for 2019, nearly the same amount it gives to families of terrorists.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Last week, the Palestinian Authority requested $350 million in humanitarian aid for 2019, Israeli weekly Makor Rishon reports. The number nearly exactly matches the $355 million Israel says it pays out to terrorist families.

Minister for Social Development Ibrahim al-Shaer met last week with Jamie McGoldrick of Ireland, the U.N.’s “Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

“The humanitarian situation among the Palestinians continues to deteriorate because of the violations of the Israeli occupation,” al-Shaer said, according to Makor Rishon. “We’re very concerned for the needy families that require humanitarian intervention.”

McGoldrick said, “Approving the budget plan is a positive process, even though we know that there is a need for additional help and for greater international support.”

The Palestinian minister urged the nations of the world to hand over the money quickly.

“We call on the international donors to help us with the requested finances for the 2019 year in order to ensure the granting of basic services to needy families, in particular those living in the Gaza Strip, in Area C, in east Jerusalem and in H2 in Hebron in the West Bank,” he said, Makor Rishon reports.

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However, Attorney Maurice Hirsch, head of legal strategies at Palestinian Media Watch, an NGO which monitors and analyzes Palestinian society through its media and schoolbooks, says that the money the PA is requesting from the U.N. will go to its program to pay the families of terrorists.

“The PA requests 350 million dollars for Palestinian humanitarian needs. The amount is equal to the amount that the PA pays to families of martyrs and prisoners. In other words, the Palestinian Authority and the U.N. fund is turning to the world to transfer humanitarian finances for the needs of financing Palestinian terror,” Hirsch said, according to Makor Rishon.

The amount includes payments to terrorist prisoners, released terrorist prisoners and to the families of the so-called “martyrs”—i.e., terrorists killed while carrying out attacks, including suicide bombers, JNS reports.

“Instead of the U.N. asking donor countries to contribute $350 million to provide for Palestinian ‘humanitarian needs,’ the U.N. should be joining the unequivocal call from many governments that the PA immediately stop squandering the $355 million of its own funds on its ‘Pay for Slay’ policy that incentivizes and rewards terrorism,” Hirsch stated.

“While the leaders of the PA have repeatedly made their moral bankruptcy crystal clear by saying that even if they only have one penny left in the bank, they will spend it on the terrorists before any other Palestinians, it is altogether unclear why the U.N.’s OCHA [Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] has decided that it is appropriate to assist the PA in raising the funds it needs to support its pugnacious policy of financially rewarding terrorists,” he said.