Yesha Council: Ramallah governor held terrorist support meetings

The council stressed that documentation of the meetings appeared on Ghanam’s official Facebook page.

By Kostis Konstantinou, TPS

Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of Jewish municipal councils in Judea and Samaria, accused Ramallah Governor Laila Ghannam of holding support meetings with multiple released terrorists, including several freed in recent prisoner deals, and said these visits reflect the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing glorification of terrorism.

According to evidence published by the council, Ghannam has recently held a series of meetings with convicted terrorists, some involved in deadly or attempted attacks against Israelis.

The council said Ghanam recently met with senior Fatah figure Dalaisha, described as one of the main planners of the 2005 shooting attack at the Halamish junction, during which two children were seriously wounded.

It also pointed out that the same individual was convicted on serious weapons charges.

In a separate meeting, Ghanam reportedly met with another group of released terrorists who had served prison sentences of around 20 years or more for involvement in multiple attacks.

The council also cited a meeting with Fakhri Barghouti, a Fatah council member imprisoned for his involvement in the 1978 murder of shuttle driver Mordechai Yekuel, and with his son, Shadi Barghouti, who was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the October 19, 2003, shooting attack in Binyamin that killed soldiers Roi Yaakov Solomon, Erez Idan, and Elad Pollak.

Shadi Barghouti was released in February 2025 as part of Israel’s hostage deal with Hamas.

Among the other released terrorists named by the council were Mazen Qadi, Abd al-Bast Shawabka, Osama Ouda, Muhammad Nahla, Saad al-Din Jabar, Amir Abu Radha and Ismail Aref Ouda.

The council stressed that documentation of the meetings appeared on Ghanam’s official Facebook page.

Yesha Council CEO Omer Rahamim said that official visits by a senior Palestinian Authority official to convicted terrorists showed that the PA ‘is not a partner for peace or a civilian body, but a hostile entity that glorifies terrorism and those who carry it out.’

This recent controversy also renews scrutiny of the Palestinian Authority’s so-called “pay-to-slay” policy — the long-standing system of stipends to imprisoned terrorists and families of killed terrorists.

The policy has directly affected the PA: the U.S. restricted certain aid under the Taylor Force Act, and Israel has repeatedly deducted PA tax revenues by the amounts it claims were used for the payments.

Despite Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s latest announcement that he would cancel the stipends, a new report released last February accused Ramallah of secretly funneling an estimated $315 million annually to more than 23,000 released terrorists and to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis.

The report, by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), stated that the PA has been concealing these payments since 2021 by disguising recipients as civil servants, security force personnel, and pensioners — the very categories Western donors thought they were safely funding to avoid supporting terrorism.