PA payments to prisoners, ‘martyr’ families now equals half its foreign aid

The 2017 Palestinian Authority budget for payments to inmates in Israeli prisons and the so-called “families of martyrs” is equal to half of the foreign aid Ramallah expects to receive this year, a recently published Israeli report shows.

According to the PA Ministry of Finance’s 2017 budget, published on its website earlier in July, salaries to incarcerated and released Palestinian prisoners, many of which are convicted terrorists, will amount in 2017 to NIS 552 million ($153.4 million).

This is an increase of 13 percent over the 2016 budget, according to a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published July 24.

The new budget also allocates $190,869,166 for payments to the so-called “martyr’s families,” a 9% jump from the $174,630,296 allocated in 2016.

The “martyrs’ families” are defined as those with members “killed or wounded in the struggle against Zionism,” which includes those killed while committing terror attacks against Israelis, or those killed in any other context by an Israeli.

The total allocated to Palestinian prisoners and ex-prisoners, as well as martyrs’ families, in the 2017 budget is 1,239,528,424 shekels ($344,313,451), equal to 49.6% of foreign aid Ramallah expects to receive in 2017.

— Dov Lieber