PA president Mahmoud Abbas said his government would no longer pay terrorists and their families as part of an agreement with the Biden administration
The State Department formally determined this month that the Palestinian Authority paid more than $200 million to terrorists and their families in 2025, the same year PA president Mahmoud Abbas claimed he ended the “pay-to-slay” program, according to a nonpublic notice provided to Congress and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.
Rather than ending these payments, the PA shifted to a new system that it hoped to hide from international donors at a time when the Ramallah-based government is jockeying for a role in postwar Gaza, the State Department disclosed for the first time. Israeli intelligence assessed that the PA funneled $144 million to terrorists and their families in 2024 and committed at least $214 million through 2025, while the State Department determined that the payments continued from March to August 2025 under a purportedly reformed welfare system.
“The old Palestinian system of compensation for Palestinian terrorists and the families of terrorists killed in the course of committing such acts of terrorism gradually transferred responsibility for compensation to the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment (PNEEI) under the guise of social welfare,” the State Department determined. “Despite changing the mechanism for doing so, the PA continued the payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families during the reporting period.”
The findings are likely to further erode the PA’s standing with the Trump administration as it works to implement phase 2 of the Gaza peace plan, which bars Abbas’s government from participating in postwar programs until it undergoes a series of reforms that include ending pay-to-slay. Though the PA has no formal role on paper, the head of the newly created National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, civil engineer Ali Shaath, has held senior roles in the PA, suggesting Abbas’s government could wield behind-the-scenes influence.
The Trump administration collected evidence that the PA used post offices, social media platforms, and encrypted messaging services like Telegram to alert aid recipients that cash was available under the newly branded pay-to-slay program, “indicating clearly that compensation in support of terrorism has continued,” according to the State Department notice.
Abbas drew international headlines in February 2025 when he ordered an end to the pay-to-slay program, saying that welfare will be provided to Palestinians based solely on need, rather than the number of years their relatives have been imprisoned in Israel for terrorism. But Abbas cast doubt on that decree just weeks later, when he promised the Fatah Revolutionary Council that “even if we only have one cent left, it will be for the prisoners and martyrs.”
While the new system implemented by a government agency Abbas controls was portrayed as a major welfare reform project, the State Department determined that it essentially functions in the same manner as the old system by rewarding terrorists and their families for violence
“A shift to a potential welfare system without ending specific payments and benefits for Palestinian terrorists and their families is not compliant with the provisions under the Taylor Force Act,” the State Department wrote, referring to a 2018 law that froze American aid to the PA until it ended pay-to-slay. “The PA continues to provide a system of compensation in support of terrorism through a new mechanism under a different name.”
The State Department additionally determined that the PA is still enacting laws that require terrorists and their families to be compensated every month. One of those statutes, known as Law No. 14, stipulates that the PA “has a duty to support terrorists while they are incarcerated in Israeli jails by paying them the equivalent of their most recent monthly salaries prior to imprisonment,” according to the notice.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israeli nonprofit group, reported on Monday that the PA dolled out a fresh tranche of “terror stipends” to recipients living in Jordan. The watchdog group compiled firsthand accounts and bank notifications that show “the sums transferred were identical to those received previously, suggesting that the payment scale remains unchanged.”
The PA historically paid incarcerated terrorists on a sliding scale, with those serving longer prison terms receiving upwards of $3,000 a month. The Free Beacon reported in October that nearly $70 million went to the 250 Palestinian prisoners released that month as part of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.
“The payments now appear to be continuing in areas believed to be beyond direct donor oversight, including Jordan and Lebanon,” PMW wrote. “While the PA has clearly not yet determined how to do so in the PA areas without attracting international scrutiny, an official from Fatah, the PA’s ruling party, revealed earlier this month that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has indicated his intent to maintain payments to all recipients.”
Abbas’s 2025 vow to end the program was the outcome of intensive diplomacy by the Biden-Harris administration’s Palestinian Affairs representative Hady Amr, according to Axios, which reported that the two parties negotiated the agreement over a two-year period before announcing it in February of last year.
Evidence that pay-to-slay continues under a new name is likely to serve as a wake-up call for the Trump administration as it pressures the PA to eradicate extremism before assuming a role in postwar Gaza.
“Abbas and the Palestinians are more committed to terrorism than fulfilling their promises to President Trump, even while the administration is asking them to help rebuild and govern Gaza,” a Republican congressional staffer who works on Gaza issues told the Free Beacon. “They’re still paying terrorists, inciting violence, and refusing to disarm Hamas.”
