Hundreds of Palestinian Terrorists Released by Israel in Ceasefire Agreement Will Return Home With Small Fortunes Paid to Them While in Prison

Hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists set to be released from prison in Israel as part of the ceasefire and hostage exchange deal have reportedly received up to six figures through monthly salaries paid by the Palestinian Authority while they were in prison. That’s the claim being made by a Middle East watchdog group, Palestinian Media Watch, which has put together a list of the 734 convicted terrorists scheduled to be released by Israel along with a tally of the financial compensation received by each one over the course of their incarceration. Some 316 of them, Palestinian Media Watch claims, will be leaving prison with more than a million shekels, or around US$280,000. The top earner is 69-year-old Mohammad Al-Tous, who has been serving a life sentence since his arrest in 1985 for organizing attacks on Israelis. Over the course of his imprisonment, Al-Tous received 2,254,200 shekels or $631,394, from the Palestinian Authority, according to the group. The second highest earner, 57-year-old Raed Al-Saadi, has been imprisoned since 1989 for carrying out attacks during the First Intifada that killed Israeli soldiers and civilians. He will have received 2,032,700 shekels, or US$568,405 from the PA for his crimes. Both terrorists were released on January 25th, along with some 200 other prisoners, in exchange for four female Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. In total, the Palestinian authority has forked over 506,000,000 shekels, or US$141,837,000, to the 734 individuals set to be released from Israeli prisons. That’s just a small fraction of the US$350,000,000 that the PA directs annually to its so-called “Martyrs’ Fund,” which provides financial support to Palestinian terrorists and their families if they are wounded, imprisoned, or killed, while carrying out acts of terror against Israelis. The policy, referred to by Israelis as “pay-for-slay” has been denounced for encouraging acts of violence against civilians.The figures tallied by the Palestinian Media Watch could not be independently verified. The organization has not yet responded to the Sun’s request for comment.Through the US Agency for International Development, America has provided more than $5 billion in financial support to the Palestinian Authority since 1994. However, when an American army officer was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Israel in 2016, the first Trump administration passed a law preventing the American government from sending taxpayer dollars to the PA until it ended its martyrs fund program.The Biden administration opted to send aid to Palestinians through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, to which it funneled more than $1 billion in assistance. The government halted the aid program when it came out that several Unrwa workers had participated in the October 7 massacre. It has recently been reported, though, that the Biden Administration, weeks before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, directed more than $3 million directly to the Palestinian Authority Security Forces to conduct “firearms and ammunition” training. Mr. Trump, since taking office, has frozen all foreign aid, including that to the Palestinian Authority, pending review. Israel, during the first phase of the ceasefire deal, has agreed to release 1,904 Palestinian prisoners, 260 of whom are serving life terms for their crimes. Some prisoners will be released into the West Bank and Gaza, while others have been sent to Egypt to be deported to other countries, including Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey. In turn, Hamas is expected to return 33 Israeli hostages. Talks will soon begin for the second stage of the ceasefire agreement, during which Hamas will release young male hostages for what is expected to be a heavier prisoner price. As Israel sets free hundreds of convicted terrorists, fear mounts that the newly released prisoners will soon get back to plotting terror attacks on the Jewish state. During the 2011 deal to release Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, of the 1,027 prisoners freed by Israel in the exchange, 82 percent of them returned to terrorism. One of the returned prisoners, Yahya Sinwar, went on to become the head of Hamas and is credited with masterminding the deadly October 7 attack. He was killed by Israeli forces in October of last year.

Hundreds of Palestinian Terrorists Released by Israel in Ceasefire Agreement Will Return Home With Small Fortunes Paid to Them While in Prison

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