"These payments are banned under Israeli law as they constitute financial support for terrorism," Palestinian Media Watch said.
Palestinian Media Watch accused the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday of playing a significant role in the Palestinian Authority’s “pay for slay” program, saying ICRC visits to imprisoned Hamas terrorists enable them to start receiving monthly stipends from the P.A.
An Aug. 18 hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, on whether Red Cross representatives should be allowed to visit jailed members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force failed to address the fact that the P.A. uses the ICRC to confirm that prisoners are indeed in Israeli custody, PMW said.
“For years, we’ve been warning that Israel’s policy of allowing Red Cross visits to security prisoners has a direct consequence,” PMW Director Itamar Marcus said. “It enables payments to convicted terrorists.