Abbas Vows to Use ‘Last Penny’ to Pay Palestinian Terrorists’ Salaries

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday vowed that his government will continue to pay salaries to terrorists and their families even if “we have only a penny left.”

“We will not accept a cut or cancellation of salaries to the families of martyrs and prisoners, as some are trying to bring about,” he told representatives of an advocacy group for Palestinian prisoners.

Around 35,000 families of Palestinians killed, wounded or serving sentences in Israeli prisons receive monthly remunerations of as much as $3,500. In 2018 the PA’s so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme amounted to approximately $330 million, which constitutes seven percent of the Palestinian Authority’s $5 billion budget.

“Even if we have only a penny left, we will give it to the martyrs, the prisoners and their families,” he said Monday.

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