Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas vowed to continue paying terrorists and their families “even if we have only one cent left,” despite reports earlier this month that he had stopped the PA’s “martyr payments.” 

Addressing a Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting on Thursday, Abbas said, “I have told you before and mark my words, even if we only have one cent left, it will be for the prisoners and martyrs.”

“I will never allow and you will never allow the reduction of any obligation, interest or cent that is given to them,” Abbas added. “They must receive everything as in the past.”

“They are more precious than all of us combined,” the Palestinian Authority president said of those who carry out terror attacks against Israelis, to applause from the audience.

The PA took down its video of the address, but Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs shared the full speech, as well as the clip of the section about the “pay-for-slay” program.

The PA has paid monthly salaries to terrorists in prison or the families of terrorists killed by Israel for over 30 years, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars annually in recent years. 

Israel, the U.S. and others have said the payments incentivize terrorism. Per the Taylor Force Act, the U.S. cannot send most kinds of aid to the PA until it stops the “pay-for-slay” policy. The Knesset passed a law in 2018 docking the equivalent of the amount paid to terrorists and their families each year from the taxes and tariffs Israel collects on behalf of the PA.

Palestinian law establishing the “Martyrs’ Fund” characterizes it as guaranteeing a “dignified life” for those who “participat[e] in the struggle against the occupation.” The minimum payment is above average for PA employees and above the normal welfare that low-income families receive from the PA, and it increases depending on the length of the prison sentence, such that terrorists who kill Israelis receive higher salaries. 

The payments have been popular among Palestinians, with 91% supporting them, according to a 2017 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. In 2021, 70% opposed a proposed change to have the payments be based on need and number of family members, rather than the severity of the acts of terror.

Abbas announced on Feb. 10 that he was “revoking the [laws]…related to the system of paying financial allowances to the families of prisoners, martyrs and the wounded,” leading many to report that the “pay-for-slay” policy was ending as a gesture to President Donald Trump. 

However, the announcement also stated that the payment system and its “financial, local, and international allocations will be transferred from the Ministry of Social Development to the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment,” an entity it calls “independent” but is “managed by a board of trustees appointed by the president.”

This accounting trick is similar to a 2014 change by the PA, which transferred the management of the Martyrs Fund from its welfare system to the PLO, even though the PA gave the PLO the funds to disburse. The PA also tried to give the Biden administration the impression that it was ending the payments for terrorists. 

Meanwhile, the PA has continued to pay terrorists despite its announcement this month. 

In a press briefing last week, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that the PA “continues with its usual deception and its pay-for-slay strategy. Based on their statements and the intelligence we have, payments to families of terrorists proceeded this week as always. The PA continues to finance and encourage terrorism.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) told Jewish Insider after Abbas’ announcement that “it would be naive to think that after years of facilitating terrorism against Israelis and Americans, the Palestinian Authority would suddenly have a change of heart.” 

Jewish Insider senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod and congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.