(Oct. 1, 2024 / JNS) The Palestinian Authority is forging ahead with the construction of a luxury neighborhood in Samaria exclusively reserved for Palestinians who have served at least five years in Israeli prisons for terrorism-related offenses, a Binyamin Regional Council spokesperson has told JNS.

The 100-villa neighborhood is located alongside Route 60 in the Binyamin region, between the Jewish communities of Ofra and Shilo.

Because the construction is taking place in Area B, which under the Oslo Agreements is under Israeli security control but P.A. civil control, Israel’s Civil Administration cannot legally impose a demolition order, according to the spokesperson. The Civil Administration is responsible for all administrative aspects of the local population within Area C, which is under full Israeli control. 

At the end of June, representatives of the Binyamin Regional Council penned a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the other Cabinet members alerting them to what they said was rampant illegal P.A. construction taking place throughout the area, including the new terrorist neighborhood. 

However, according to Naomi Kahn, director of the Regavim NGO’s International Division, the building project continues to move forward full steam ahead, courtesy of U.S. and E.U. tax revenues. 

“U.S. and European tax dollars go not only to fund terrorism and to pay the families of ‘martyrs’ whose great source of glory is murdering Jews, they also house released terrorists in luxury apartments in a ‘terrorists only’ neighborhood. This endangers the very people these terrorists tried to kill the first time, and their families. This is an insane situation,” Kahn told JNS. 

“European governments that are funding the P.A. and are enabling this—we give them the benefit of the doubt that they don’t understand that their money is going to fund terrorism and support terrorists,” she said. 

“The more we publicize this and the more put it in their [E.U. governments] face and demand they think before they fund the P.A., which has proven it is a terrorist authority, the better off we’ll all be. This has to end,” she added.

Regavim has warned the Civil Administration that the new neighborhood poses a security threat, said Kahn, but she acknowledged that there is little the Civil Administration can do about it.   

“The P.A. is poking us in the eye, and we’re making believe that it doesn’t hurt or isn’t going to. But it will hurt. All we can do is warn about the security risk this neighborhood for ‘terrorists only’ poses,” she said.  

Maurice Hirsch, director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs and the former director of the Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria, told JNS that he is not surprised to hear that the P.A. is building houses for terrorists. 

“For over three decades, the P.A. has been running its multi-billion-dollar, terror-rewarding ‘pay-for-slay’ policy,” he said. “The policy guarantees not only a regular monthly income but also a whole slew of additional benefits, that include free higher education, special health coverage for relatives for the terrorists, travel and even a tax exemption for buying a new car,” he told JNS. “It’s time the international community internalized a simple reality: As part of its plan to destroy Israel, the P.A. prioritizes rewarding terror over every other consideration.” 

Binyamin Regional Council head Israel Ganz, who also serves as chairman of the Yesha Council, warned JNS that until the government of Israel views the P.A. as being on par with Hamas, another Oct. 7 will be right around the corner. 

“The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist entity. Western countries deny this and thus strengthen the axis of evil. The P.A. encourages the murder of Jews with stipends, by building neighborhoods for terrorists and by other means, while working against Israel in the international arena,” he said.

“There is no difference between Hamas and the P.A. Their ambitions are the same, and if we don’t wake up to the threat posed by the P.A. and its leaders … who incite the murder Jews on a daily basis, we may wake up to another Oct. 7 morning,” he added.    

Last March, JNS reported that the Al Karma Corporation for Housing Prisoners association, whose members are themselves Palestinian terrorists who have served in Israeli prisons, was behind the project. 

According to a Channel 12 report, the project’s executive committee includes Abla Sa’adat, the wife of Ahmad Sa’adat, the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Also on the executive committee is Naim el Sharif, the father of Hamas terrorist Imad el Sharif.

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