Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that his government will continue paying stipends to Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel and to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis.
These stipends are expected to amount to $330 million, or about 7% of the Palestinian Authority's $5 billion budget in 2018.
Last week, the Israeli parliament passed legislation by which it plans to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in funds from taxes collected on the Palestinian Authority's behalf.
Soon after the legislation was passed, PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Israel's move "crossed a red line," and that the legislation amounted to a "declaration of war on the Palestinian people, on our soldiers, our dead and our prisoners, and we will not tolerate it under any circumstances."
He warned the legislation would have "serious repercussions," adding that the Palestinian leadership would convene soon to formulate a response "that would change the nature of the existing relations" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas on Sunday defiantly told a meeting of Fatah party leaders that the Palestinian government would pay "our martyrs, prisoners and wounded people" as it had since 1965.
"The money we pay to families of prisoners and martyrs, which Israel opposes – we will not allow anyone to intervene with it. We are watching and are waiting and we will take the appropriate measures that suit our interest," Abbas was quoted as saying by the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
Israel has for years called on Palestinians to halt the stipends, which benefit roughly 35,000 families, saying the practice encourages violence.
The Palestinians contend the number of stipend recipients involved in deadly attacks is a small fraction of those aided by the fund. They say that the tax revenue collected by Israel for them under the 1993 Oslo Accords is their money and that the Palestinian Authority has a responsibility to all of its citizens like any other government.
