Breakthrough Court Ruling Approves Seizure of Terrorist’s Stipend from PA

The seizure order is part of a precedent-setting initiative taken by the Ministry of Defense to stop monetary payments to convicted terrorists.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

An Israeli district court on Sunday evening approved the government’s seizure of tens of thousands of shekels that imprisoned terrorist Fakhri Zahir Mansour Omar had received from the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a salary. The court rejected his father’s petition against the move, setting a legal precedent for further seizures of terror funds.

Omar, an accomplice to murder, transported the terrorist who carried out an attack on a market in Hadera in October 2005 in which six Israelis were killed.

Israel has recently begun to confiscate the monthly stipends paid by the PA to convicted terrorists with Israeli citizenship and their families. The seizure order is part of a precedent-setting initiative by the National Headquarters on Terrorist Economic Counter-Terrorism at the Ministry of Defense.

This move has so far led to the seizure and forfeiture of hundreds of thousands of shekels in other operations.

The PA has a policy of paying the families of convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel, including Arabs with Israeli citizenship. The payments have been criticized as a financial incentive to commit terror attacks against Israelis.

According to the PA’s pay scale, the salary of an imprisoned terrorist begins at NIS 1,400 ($401) monthly and gradually rises to NIS 12,000 ($3,435), in accordance with the amount of time he or she has been incarcerated. Therefore, the more severe the attack, the higher the stipend the terrorist is set to receive.

Terrorist prisoners who are married, have children, or are Israeli citizens or residents of eastern Jerusalem receive a special addition to the base salary.