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Research

The Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund — What the Law Actually Pays For

The Palestinian Authority runs a state program that pays cash to people who killed Israelis and their families. Here is what the law says, what Congress did, and why the fund still exists.

The Palestinian Authority runs a cash program that rewards people who attacked Israelis. The longer a prisoner serves, the more their family gets. Families of attackers killed in the act also get paid. This is not a rumor. It is in the PA’s own law, and the United States Congress wrote a law to fight it.

Why this page matters

A government that pays for terrorism is not a government we should fund. That is the editorial line at OZJF, and it is also the line of a bipartisan U.S. law. If readers only take one thing from this page, it should be that the PA chose the policy on purpose, defended it in court, and kept it running even when it cost them aid.

What the law actually says

Two PA laws set up the program.

The first is the Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners (Law No. 14 of 2004), which treats every Palestinian held in Israeli prisons as a “fighter for freedom” and sets a pay scale tied to time served. The second is the Law of the Wounded and Martyrs of the Palestinian Revolution (Law No. 3 of 2013), which pays families of Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis.

Both laws were reviewed and summarized by Palestinian Media Watch in a line-by-line English translation. The translation matches the original Arabic text and has been cited in U.S. congressional testimony.

The scale is simple. More jail time means more money. The average prisoner payment rises with the length of the sentence, which rises with the severity of the attack. A PMW analysis of the official pay scale found that long-sentence prisoners (those who killed Israelis) can receive multiples of what a short-sentence prisoner gets. Families of “martyrs” get a monthly allowance that does not expire.

What the United States did about it

In March 2018, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, named after a U.S. Army veteran stabbed to death in Jaffa in 2016 by a Palestinian who was later added to the martyrs rolls.

The law is short and direct. It cuts most U.S. economic aid to the PA until the State Department certifies that the PA:

  • has stopped paying for acts of terror,
  • has revoked the laws and decrees that authorize those payments, and
  • is publicly condemning and working to prevent such acts.

The full text is in public law and codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2378c-1. The State Department’s annual Taylor Force Act reports have not yet certified compliance.

The 2024–2025 “reform” claim

In early 2025, the PA announced a cabinet decree and new “social assistance” arrangements meant to replace the prisoner pay scale. Reuters covered the announcement and noted the PA’s own statement that the change was driven by U.S. and European pressure.

The problem is that the underlying laws have not been repealed, and Palestinian Media Watch has published follow-up analyses showing that prisoner payments continued under renamed budget lines into 2025. Independent confirmation has not happened. Until the laws are repealed and independently audited, the program has not ended.

Why civilians still matter here

Palestinian civilians are civilians. That is not a concession — it is a baseline. Most Palestinians are not attackers and most will never be. The point of this page is not to collapse a people into their worst leaders. The point is that the PA, which claims to represent those civilians, made a policy choice to reward the worst actors among them. That choice is what OZJF opposes.

The right takeaway

If you want peace, stop paying for war. A government that keeps a legal line item for “prisoners who killed Israelis” is not a partner. Asking the PA to end that program is not extremism. It is the floor.

Sources used on this page