Palestinian Authority admits PMW was correct – it continued Pay-for-Slay

Over the last few months, the Palestinian Authority has been leaking stories to The Times of Israel claiming that it had stopped the Pay-for-Slay terror rewards program. These stories drew international attention and praise for the PA, which has refused to stop rewarding terrorists since 2011, when PMW first exposed the PA's Pay-for-Slay program and presented the information to international donors.

Meanwhile, PMW has proveneverymonth until now that the PA has continued to pay salaries and reward families of terrorist "Martyrs." Nothing has changed.

The PA likely chose to release these stories to an Israeli source so that international media and foreign countries would assume that it must be true. Unfortunately, the Israeli source continued to trust the PA's misinformation.

Now that the PA's lies were exposed by PMW, the PA is claiming that it did not intend to pay the terror salaries last month. Instead, it claims that some unofficial people who had access to the PA's bank accounts spent millions of PA shekels to pay the terrorists without the PA's approval. 

Today, in an attempt to clear its name again, the PA's chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, issued yet another statement claiming that he is not responsible for the past payments and that from now on, all the payments will go through the new system. Meanwhile, Abbas has not said that terrorists would no longer receive salaries. He only said that the system had changed.

The following is today's PA announcement, which is nothing new and is like many of the announcements made in the past claiming to have ended merely the Pay-for-Slay structure but not the terror rewards themselves. As in previous months, PMW will update as soon as PA terror salaries are paid.

"Accordingly, President Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, reiterated the following:

1. The Palestinian National Institution for Economic Empowerment is the sole entity responsible for implementing Decree-Law No. (4) of 2025. It is authorized to disburse financial allocations, apply eligibility criteria with complete fairness and transparency, and implement the provisions of the law in its entirety without any exceptions.

2. No financial allocations will be disbursed to any category covered by the new system until the unified form approved by the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment is completed and the eligibility conditions and criteria stipulated in the law are met.

3. The government, ministries, and other institutions are considered irrelevant to disbursement files or financial allocation programs after the enactment of Law No. (4) of 2025. We emphasize that any procedures or instructions issued by entities other than the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment are null and void and not binding.

4. We affirm the strict commitment to implementing the provisions of Law No. (4) of 2025 and warn against any violation or obstruction of its requirements. The Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment bears full responsibility for implementing the law and monitoring entitlements.

5. We call upon all beneficiaries to fully cooperate with the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment and to complete the unified form only through official channels to ensure that allocations reach their rightful recipients fairly and transparently, within the framework of the unified social protection and welfare system."

[WAFA, official PA news agency, November 16, 2025]