Court freezes PA tax funds for bereaved father whose family was killed by terrorists

The Jerusalem District Court issued an order on Tuesday to freeze NIS 50 million ($13.7 million) worth of Palestinian Authority tax dollars after Rabbi Leo Dee, whose wife and two daughters were murdered by Hamas terrorists two years ago, sued the West Bank-based government.

The British-Israeli rabbi filed the lawsuit against Ramallah in October over its controversial prisoner payment system, which PA President Mahmoud Abbas said in February that he would discontinue in a bid for increased international support.

The so-called pay for slay policy provided welfare payments to Palestinians in Israeli prisons — in addition to the families of slain and wounded attackers — based on the length of their sentence.

“PA resources should not support terrorism,” Dee said on Tuesday. “I urge other terror victims in Israel to pursue similar action. Together, we can strip the enemy of their assets.”

Dee had been traveling through the West Bank, headed to Tiberias for the Passover holiday in April 2023 with his wife, Lucy, and two daughters, Maia and Rina, when Hamas gunmen driving past opened fire on their car.

The bereaved father had been driving in a separate vehicle just meters ahead of the rest of his family when the terrorists attacked. His two daughters were killed at the scene, while his wife succumbed to her wounds in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital two days later.

The court has not yet ruled on whether Dee will receive compensation for the murder of his wife and kids but has rather granted a temporary order safeguarding the maximum amount of money he can receive should he win the case.

The lawsuit, filed by Dee with the legal NGO Shurat HaDin, was possible by way of a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that said the Palestinian Authority was culpable for terrorist attacks in Israel due to its prisoner payment system.

The money frozen on Tuesday was sourced from the hundreds of millions of shekels in frozen funds deducted by Israel from the taxes it collects for the PA.

The Knesset passed a law in 2018 stipulating that Israel would deduct the total sum of money that the PA pays in monthly terrorist stipends from the monthly tax funds it transfers to the Palestinian governing body and freeze that money until the PA ceases to pay the stipends.

In November, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the PA was obligated to pay the next of kin of three victims of the deadly 2001 Sbarro terror bombing NIS 46 million ($12.5 million) in punitive damages, compensation, funeral costs, and legal expenses.

The court’s decision also relied on legislation passed earlier this year allowing the victims of terrorism and their families to seek not only compensation but also punitive damages from the PA and any organization that pays people for committing acts of terrorism.

Dee is one of the several hundred victims of Palestinian terrorism who have also filed suit against the PA for compensation and punitive damages, meaning the authority is likely to be found liable for hundreds of millions of shekels.

“I am delighted we are making progress. My desire is for other families to also be suing the Palestinian Authority,” Dee said, as quoted by the Daily Mail. “My hope is we can bankrupt them. Since the UN is intent on continuing to fund them, we have to act independently to stop their funding and save lives.”

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.