atah spokesman: Terrorist salaries are “social welfare” not “Pay for Slay”

Fatah spokesman: Terrorist salaries are “social welfare” not “Pay for Slay”

Fatah Spokesman Jamal Nazzal in an interview with Al-Arabiya in English:

Al-Arabiya TV host: “Washington says it denied your [Palestinian] delegation visas and [PA Chairman] Mahmoud Abbas to attend the UN over [the PA’s] legal action against Israel [at the ICC], [its] payments to prisoners’ (i.e., terrorists’) families and PLO activities. What is your response? …”

Fatah Spokesman Jamal Nazzal: “I’ll refer them to what Mr. Abbas just said in his speech [to the UN]. He talked about the unified system for social protection and welfare based on needs. All [PA] laws and regulations that are contrary to this had been altered and it has been implemented. These payments (i.e., salaries to terrorists) are a kind of social welfare to Palestinian families, because Israel has arrested tens of thousands of Palestinian individuals (i.e., terrorists) or killed dozens of thousands Palestinian individuals (i.e., terrorists) and their families have to be supported. It’s not like they [Israel] portray it “Pay to Slay”.”
[Fatah Spokesman Dr. Jamal Nazzal, Facebook page, Sept. 24, 2026]

PA terror salaries - Under Palestinian Authority law, the PA pays thousands of terrorist prisoners monthly salaries from the day of their arrest. The PA also provides salaries and various grants and benefits to released terrorists. Moreover, the PA pays wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorist "Martyrs" monthly allowances. Palestinian Media Watch has exposed and documented this PA practice for over a decade, and in doing so has brought about change in and cancellation of Western funding to the PA.

Abbas' revision of "Pay-for-Slay" - PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree on Feb. 10, 2025, transferring the payment of terror salary "allowances" to the families of terrorist prisoners, dead terrorists, and wounded terrorists and the database of recipients from the PA Ministry of Social Development to the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI). PA officials confirmed that the terrorists will continue receiving their payments under the new decree. While PNEEI presents itself as an "independent institution," its website notes it "was established in 2019 according to a law decree issued by the President of the State of Palestine [Abbas] in January 2019." Likewise the head of its board of trustees is PLO Executive Committee member and Head of the PLO Department of Labor and Planning Ahmed Majdalani, and according to a 2019 decree by Abbas, 7 of the 12 members of its board of trustees are senior representatives of the following PA government ministries and official PLO institutions: the Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Finance and Planning, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Monetary Authority, and Supreme Council for Youth and Sports.