A newly published investigation highlighted issues that have long been overlooked — namely, that deals forcing Israel to release hundreds of terrorists and the unending Palestinian Authority (PA) pay-for-slay program fueled more terrorism, including the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Over 650 jihadis with ties to the Oct. 7 atrocities reportedly received "pay-for-slay" payouts, while over 150 terrorists released through the U.S.-brokered Gaza "peace deal" became automatic millionaires through the same means. But years before that 2023 day when Palestinian jihadis raped, murdered, tortured, and kidnapped 1,200 innocents to enthusiastic support from Gazans, pay-for-slay was funding multiple generations of terrorists. And we’re talking more than $5 billion in pay-for-slay just since 2011.
A study published July 30 at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) found the following:
The PA established a comprehensive statutory framework governing financial benefits for terrorist prisoners and released terrorists.
Over time, the remuneration system expanded beyond monthly salaries to include release grants, guaranteed employment within the PA apparatus, and continuing financial support where employment was unavailable.
The legal framework progressively increased both the level of financial benefits and the institutional obligations imposed upon the PA toward terrorist prisoners and released terrorists.
Numerous terrorists released under the 2011 Shalit prisoner exchange resumed terrorist activity shortly after their release.
Many of those individuals subsequently occupied senior positions within Hamas’ political, military, financial, and security leadership.
Because Israelis value each individual’s life and Palestinians exploit that moral superiority, the Gilad Shalit deal released over a thousand jihadis for just one Israeli soldier. One of the traded jihadis was Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of Oct. 7. After that deal, Shalit got married and helped victims of terrorism. Sinwar plotted Oct. 7. And that right there is the difference between Israelis and Palestinians, between Judaism and Islam.
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From the JCFA study again:
Several beneficiaries of the PA/PLO remuneration system later played significant roles in planning, financing, directing, or participating in the October 7, 2023, massacre.
Following October 7, neither the PA nor the PLO fundamentally abandoned the underlying policy of remunerating terrorist prisoners and released terrorists, notwithstanding changes to the administrative mechanisms through which payments were made.
Publicly available financial information indicates that the PA/PLO has continued to devote substantial financial resources to this institutional framework.
Let’s put some numbers on this. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, protege of the father of modern jihad, Yasser Arafat, and ideological heir of Adolf Hitler’s ally the Grand Mufti, was recently demanding $5 billion from Israel while griping that he was low on funds for the pay-for-slay program. Coincidentally, the PA spent a little over $5 billion on payouts to terrorists in the last 15 years.
A Palestinian woman reminisces how members of her family took part in the 1929 Hebron Massacre, well before Israel's independence, and hopes that the next generation will continue killing Jews.
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) July 31, 2026
Her words are a chilling reminder of how hatred thrives to this day in Palestinian… pic.twitter.com/iBFtoXpFj8
It is important to emphasize that Palestinian terrorism is a very real and ongoing issue at the present moment. Despite all the happy talk from the American government about Gaza, Palestinian terrorists continue to murder Israelis in Samaria and plot Jihad in Gaza. As of May 2026, a majority of Palestinians opposed normalization of relations with Israel and demanded ownership of Jerusalem and most Israeli territory. The Palestinians, from the top down, are obsessed with jihad.
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