Ignoring ‘pay-for-slay’ reform, Ramallah court tells PA to reinstate money for prisoner |
A Ramallah court has ordered the Palestinian Authority to resume stipend payments to the family of a man held in an Israeli prison, in a seemingly precedent-setting ruling that could cast a shadow on efforts to answer international calls for the payout scheme to be scrapped.
In a verdict handed down May 4, the administrative court found in favor of the father of Firas Hassan, an 18-year-old Bethlehem resident who has been imprisoned by Israel since 2024. According to Ahmad Hassan, the family stopped receiving monthly stipends from the PA Finance Ministry in May, though no reason was given.
Though the potential impact of the ruling, which can still be appealed, is unclear, it may constitute a significant knock against PA reforms over the past year aimed at changing the structure of stipends paid to Palestinians arrested for terror offenses, a domestically popular program that has long been the subject of condemnation for allegedly incentivizing violence.
Tempering any possible effect from the verdict, though, is the likelihood that the cash-strapped PA will simply ignore the ruling, as well as the fact that the reforms had already been derided by the US State Department as insufficiently robust, with money continuing to flow to terrorists’ families.
Hassan was one of some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who stopped receiving stipends in May 2025, though the PA did not officially announce the move or explain why the money was being cut off.
Months before, PA President Mahmoud Abbas had signed a decree scrapping payouts to Palestinian detainees based on the length of a prison sentence.
Under the new rules, only inmates who met certain welfare criteria would be eligible for the stipends, which would be disbursed by a revived fund called the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment. According to the State Department, this resulted in many security prisoners and slain attackers continuing to receive their payouts.
Ramallah has long defended the payments as a form of social welfare and necessary compensation for victims of what it says is a callous Israeli military justice system in the West Bank. However, the shift to a needs-based rubric proved unpopular on the Palestinian street, sparking protests in December in several West Bank cities.
Attorney Ahmad Nasra, who filed Ahmed Hassan’s petition, the ruling affects not only the Hassans, but all 1,612 Palestinian prisoners whose stipends were halted.
However Ibrahim Dalalsha, an expert on Palestinian law, told The Times of Israel that the ruling likely had limited significance beyond Hassan.
“Palestinian courts do not operate under........