Hamas officially mum as its allies slam PA over apparent suspension of prisoner payments

Hamas allies cry foul over a statement last week by the Palestinian Authority’s new welfare agency that said Ramallah would pay stipends to prisoners in Israeli jails based on economic need rather than time served.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group says the PA’s move to end special payments to the families of Palestinians killed, wounded or detained by Israel — including while or after committing attacks — is tantamount to “stabbing our nation’s history of struggle in the back.”

“The decision seeks to turn this well-established right into a social ‘handout’ dependent on social research and devoid of any national consideration,” PIJ says.

Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), another Hamas ally, says the PA move is a “national and moral crime” that “aligns with the policy of the Zionist enemy.”

Another press release published by PRC and attributed broadly to “factions of the Palestinian resistance” says the PA move is a “dangerous policy that deepens the division” among the Palestinian people and “reflects a blatant submission to foreign diktats.”

The statement does not appear on Hamas’s own social media. Both PRC and Hamas have previously published disparate press releases attributed to “factions of the Palestinian resistance.”

The statements follow a Thursday press release by the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution, also known as Tamkeen, that denied Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s accusation that the PA had failed to end what Israel and others call “pay-to-slay” laws that incentivize terror attacks.

Responding to Sa’ar, Tamkeen said it was the only body in the PA empowered to determine financial entitlements, and that it complies with Abbas’s February decree to end the laws.

The Tamkeen statement quickly drew fire both within Abbas’s own Fatah faction and from the head of the PA’s prisoner affairs office, which had hitherto handled the payments.

The statement came as PA President Mahmoud Abbas seeks to demonstrate the PA’s competence to assume the reins of postwar Gaza under US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, which requires the PA to undergo unspecified reforms.

In an apparent sign that Abbas’s decree from earlier this year to end the payments is being implemented, Palestinians in the West Bank have taken to the streets to demand the stipends be restored.