From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Hamas: Palestinian Authority has halted payments to 7 senior operatives imprisoned in Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleNurit Yohanan is The Times of Israel's Palestinian and Arab world correspondent
The Palestinian Authority has halted payments to the families of seven Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad prisoners held in Israel, Hamas’s Prisoners Ministry said recently, identifying the seven prisoners by name.
The Hamas statement does not specify when the PA halted the payments to their families.
Among those named are Abbas al-Sayed, who planned the 2002 Park Hotel bombing during the Second Intifada; Jamal Abu al-Hija, a senior Hamas figure in the West Bank; and Bilal Barghouti, a Hamas operative who planned the 2003 Sbarro restaurant bombing. All are serving multiple life sentences. Al-Sayed’s name has recently surfaced in reports as one of the prisoners Hamas is demanding be released in a hostage exchange deal.
The Hamas announcement is consistent with The Times of Israel’s reporting from last month, which revealed that the PA has completed the establishment of a new welfare program and finished phasing out a previous system that critics claimed incentivized terror attacks against Israelis.
The Times of Israel Community.