Despite severe economic distress, declining revenues, and sustained international pressure, the Palestinian Authority significantly increased its payments to terrorists and their families in 2025.
According to new findings by Lt. Col. (res.) Adv. Maurice Hirsch, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, the PA committed approximately $214 million in 2025 to so-called “martyr” and prisoner payments — up sharply from $144 million in 2024, even though the current budget year has not yet concluded.
Hirsch stresses that this is not an accidental budgetary issue but a deeply entrenched and deliberately concealed policy. The payments, he explains, are funneled through the PLO, disguised as welfare benefits, pensions, and indirect financial perks to evade international scrutiny. Claims by the Palestinian Authority that the policy was abolished were, according to Hirsch, intentionally deceptive. Those claims were directly contradicted by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who publicly declared: “If we are left with only one penny, it will go to the martyrs and the prisoners.”
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