State Dept. Confirms: PA Continues Terror Payments Despite "Reforms"
A new report to Congress reveals PA paid $156 million to terrorists and their families in 2025, using shell organizations and budget transfers to circumvent international scrutiny
The Palestinian Authority concealed over $156 million in payments to terrorists and their families throughout 2025—despite publicly claiming to have ended its notorious “pay-for-slay” program—according to a State Department report submitted to Congress in April 2026. The finding deals a significant blow to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s stated commitment to reform and raises serious questions about the Palestinian Authority’s eligibility for international aid and any future role in Gaza governance.
The report, mandated under the Taylor Force Act, documented that the PA “continued payments and benefits to Palestinian terrorists and their families” through multiple new mechanisms, including a supposedly welfare-focused entity called the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment (PNEEI). Of the total distributed in 2025, $126 million went directly to current and released prisoners, while $30 million was paid to families of deceased terrorists who died carrying out attacks.
Shell Organizations and Budget Shell Games
The State Department’s investigation revealed that PA Finance Minister Estephan Salameh publicly contradicted his government’s reform claims in February 2026, admitting: “We have not abandoned any Palestinian resident, whether they are prisoners or families of Martyrs and wounded. This is a clear fundamental issue.” The admission came just months after his predecessor, Omar Bitar, was fired in November 2025 for allowing terror payments to continue.
According to research by Palestinian Media Watch, the PA concealed an additional layer of payments by routing them through alternate budgets controlled by PA Security Forces, civil service positions, and pension offices. More than 10,000 former terrorist inmates are receiving monthly stipends ranging from $1,280 to $3,800, with the PA projecting $315 million in total terror payments for 2026.
Released Terrorists Notified to Register for Payments
In January 2026, the PLO Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs published a list of 52 released prisoners—including five freed in recent Israel-Hamas hostage exchanges—instructing them to update bank details to continue receiving monthly salaries. The list included Ahmad Dahidi, who orchestrated a January 2003 shooting that murdered Israeli citizen Eli Biton; Ahmad Abu Awad and Ahmad Al-Shibani, both involved in constructing the bomb for a May 2003 Afula mall suicide bombing that killed three civilians and injured 70; and Saed Zaid, implicated in a June 2003 shooting that murdered Amit Mintin.
These five terrorists had accumulated approximately $1.55 million in unpaid salaries by the time of their February 2025 release, plus one-time release grants totaling $52,500. The PA now plans to provide them a combined $12,100 monthly going forward.
International Donors Acknowledge Deception
The European Union Commission acknowledged in November 2025 that payments were continuing despite reform promises, stating it “profoundly regret[s] this decision, as this seems to go against prior announcements.” A subsequent Euronews investigation found that PNEEI applicants receive supplementary payments beyond reported welfare stipends through unaudited bypass channels. The PA acknowledged to EU donors that while 3,000 individuals would no longer qualify under the new system, 2,000 would continue receiving payments.
The Israeli foreign ministry documented October 2025 footage showing individuals waiting in line at PA post offices to collect payments—the standard method under the PA’s terror compensation system.
Glorification of Terror Continues
Beyond financial support, PA officials continue refusing to condemn attacks against Americans and Israelis. Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Abbas’s advisor on religious affairs, blamed Israel for the December 14, 2025, Bondi Beach terror attack in Australia that killed 15 Jews at a Hanukkah event. While calling the massacre “a crime,” Al-Habbash stated: “The analysis of what happened...points the finger of blame at one party that bears responsibility for dragging the entire world into this dangerous cycle...and that is the Israeli occupation.”
A November 2025 report by IMPACT-se found that PA textbooks for grades 1-12 continue glorifying jihad and inciting violence, with 12th-grade materials containing “passages glorifying jihad and martyrdom, promising divine and earthly rewards for those who die in battle, and lessons warning of ‘the danger of the People of the Book, especially the Jews.’”
Implications for Gaza and U.S. Aid
The findings have significant implications for the PA’s aspirations to govern postwar Gaza. A State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon that “a truly reformed PA that wants to have any part of Gaza must stop these payments immediately.” Under the Taylor Force Act, passed in 2018, U.S. economic assistance to the Palestinian Authority is conditioned on ending terror payments—a requirement the PA has demonstrably failed to meet.
The report confirms what critics have long suspected: Abbas’s February 2025 decree ending pay-for-slay was window dressing designed to maintain international funding while preserving a terrorism incentive structure that rewards violence against Israeli and American citizens. As the State Department concluded, the PA “continues to provide a system of compensation in support of terrorism through new mechanisms and under a different name.”