Photo by Alaa Badarneh/EPA
Less than a week after the Biden administration welcomed the formation of a new Palestinian Authority government after it formed a new cabinet lineup, the Palestinian General Intelligence Service provided a grant to 36 families of agency officials who died or were imprisoned as a result of their involvement in anti-Israel security crimes, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
According to a statement released at the end of March, the US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the U.S looks forward to working with the new group “to deliver on credible reforms”.
“A revitalized PA is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza and establishing the conditions for stability in the broader region,” Miller said.
The new “revitalized” Palestinian Authority will be headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, the same leader who has been leading since 2005 and has not faced a re-election since, The Times of Israel reported.
After receiving the funds from the Biden administration, the PA’s WAFA News Agency and Al-Hayat Al-Jidida daily reported that Service Director in Jenin Adnan Abu Aisheh said that President Mahmoud Abbas “has said again and again-that if we are left with one penny, it will be paid to the families of the martyrs and the prisoners.”
Qadura Fares, the Director of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club, has declared that reports that the system will be reformed to stop paying salaries to prisoners is false despite the Biden administration pushing for reforms, because it is “anchored in Palestinian law and is non-negotiable,” Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group, reported.
The Palestinian Authority has also committed to expanding it’s program funding Hamas, and is expected to pay nearly $97 million to 13,000 Hamas terrorists in the year following the October 7th 2023 attack on Israel, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
“The only way the Palestinian Authority will ever stop its support for terrorism is if it faces real repercussions,” Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, said. “The United States and other Western countries should cut off all funding and all training of Palestinian Authority until the entire system is cleaned up.”