Israel raids homes of Palestinians freed in Gaza deals, says they got ‘pay-to-slay’ stipends

Forces confiscate five cars and hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash and jewelry from homes in East Jerusalem, police and Defense Ministry say

Israeli forces raided the East Jerusalem homes of Palestinian former security prisoners who were freed in exchange for hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and who have been getting “cash benefits from the Palestinian Authority for the terrorist acts they committed,” the police and Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

The joint statement did not specify when the raids took place.

Officers from the ministry’s Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing confiscated hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash, five vehicles and jewelry worth NIS 96,000 ($32,400), the statement said.

The seizure complied with a repossession order signed by Defense Minister Israel Katz against released Palestinian prisoners who still receive the PA stipends that Israel refers to as “pay-to-slay” payments, according to the statement.

The PA had a longstanding stipend scheme providing benefits to Palestinians arrested for terror offenses or the families of those killed while carrying out attacks. Amid international pressure, and in a bid to position Ramallah as a governing alternative to Hamas in Gaza, PA President Mahmoud Abbas last year enacted a welfare program that the PA insists ended the payments.

An external audit earlier this year suggested the welfare reform was in effect. The reform tied welfare recipients’ stipends to their financial situation rather than time served or their actions, sparking protests in the West Bank.

However, Washington and Jerusalem have remained doubtful.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas chairs a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on February 19, 2025. (Thaer GHANEM / PPO / AFP)

According to the police and Defense Ministry statement, former prisoners whose homes were raided over stipend payments included Ahed al-Natsheh, a Hamas operative convicted of planning a pair of 2001 attacks in Jerusalem, one of which wounded a dozen people; and Muhammad Abad, a Fatah operative convicted of planning a 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Both were released under the second ceasefire deal with Hamas that was reached in January 2025.

Palestinian Jerusalem-based outlet Al-Qastal reported that two other prisoners released in that deal were summoned for interrogation on Wednesday after Israeli forces raided their homes in the East Jerusalem area of Silwan.

They were named as Muhammad Farroukh and Amir Farroukh, members of a group the Shin Bet busted in 2017 that carried out several firebombings and other attacks in the capital and that was planning shootings at the time, according to the security agency.

Israeli security forces stand guard as buses transporting Palestinian prisoners being released as part of a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas leave the Ketziot prison in the Negev desert on January 25, 2025. (Gil Magen-Cohen/AFP)

Hamas-led terrorists abducted 251 hostages to Gaza during the October 7 onslaught, while massacring men, women and children in their homes, at a rave and in shelters, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

Throughout the war in Gaza Israel reached several ceasefire deals with Hamas and eventually freed some 4,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, Gazan terror suspects detained during the war and the bodies of Palestinian terrorists.