(JNS) Israel has transferred 110 million shekels (approximately $29 million) in frozen Palestinian Authority tax revenues to 52 Palestinians who were arrested and tortured by the PA for assisting Israeli security forces in preventing terrorist attacks, Hebrew media reported on Tuesday.
The transfer of the funds marked the conclusion of a legal battle led by the Arbus, Kedem, Tzur law firm, which has represented the Palestinian victims, as well as Israeli terror victims, in Jerusalem District Court proceedings.
“This is a dramatic step by the State of Israel,” attorneys Barak Kedem and Aryeh Arbus told Israel National News, noting that “even today, dozens of Palestinians come to our office who were tortured by Abu Mazen’s PA, solely because they helped Israel prevent terrorism,” referring to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.
“It is important that everyone out there who helps Israel in various ways knows that, when the time comes, Israel will assist them,” they added.
A spokesman for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told JNS on Tuesday that every court decision requiring the PA to pay damages to terror victims or to Palestinians persecuted for aiding Israel is now executed promptly, with funds deducted from Ramallah’s tax revenues.
Jerusalem collects 600 million to 700 million shekels ($162 million to $189 million) in tax and tariff revenue on behalf of Ramallah every month under the terms of the Oslo Accords, signed in the 1990s.
“For years, the Palestinian Authority encouraged terror without paying a price. No more,” Smotrich’s spokesman said, adding that verdicts totaling billions of shekels have been enforced to date.
The lawsuits were based on a precedent-setting Supreme Court ruling from 2021, which determined that Israeli courts are authorized to hear claims against the PA, which it said does not enjoy state immunity.
Medical files submitted in the various lawsuits proved PA officers beat their victims all over their bodies with rifles, batons and electric cables. They were denied sleep and access to a toilet, forced to drink soap and had teeth broken. Family members were also threatened.
Judge Miriam Ilany ruled in December that Ramallah “is responsible for the unlawful imprisonment and torture of the cooperators,” adding that the conduct “constitutes a blatant violation of basic human rights.”
“It is hard to believe that the Israeli courts would recognize a defense that cooperation with Israel is an act of treason in favor of the Israeli enemy,” she said. “In addition, those acts of ‘treason’ were intended to prevent acts of terrorism against Israel and against Israelis, which the PA pledged to prevent in the [Oslo Accords] interim agreement.”
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, which the Jewish state signed with Palestinian terror leader Yasser Arafat in the 1990s, the newly created PA was tasked with fighting terrorism in parts of Judea and Samaria.
The PA has one of the largest per capita security forces in the world, trained and armed by the United States and other Western nations. Some countries want the PA to assume control of Gaza after the war against Hamas ends, a move that Jerusalem has so far resisted.
