Freed Terrorists Being Paid Millions as Part of Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay for Slay’ Program 
The Daily Signal 10/21/2025 12:25:00 PM
 

The Palestinian Authority in Gaza has paid recently released terrorists the equivalent of millions of dollars as part of a “Pay for Slay” program, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.  

The recent ceasefire and hostage deal between Hamas and Israel included the release of “250 Palestinian terrorists” in exchange for the hostages still being held in Gaza. Among the group, 160 terrorists received monthly payments out of the Palestinian Authority’s “Martyrs Fund,” which is estimated to have grown over time to $70 million, according to Palestinian Media Watch. 

“The Palestinian Authority (PA) paid these same terrorists, many of them from Hamas, a collective $70 million. This is what is called Pay-for-Slay. This policy must stop, it fuels terror,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote on the social media platform X Tuesday.  

The “pay-for-slay program” or “Martyrs Fund” was established in 2004 to “compensate Palestinians who committed acts of terrorism against the State of Israel, and either died or were imprisoned as a result,” according to American Enterprise Institute distinguished senior fellow Danielle Pletka and Stephen Ailinger, an AEI government-relations associate in foreign and defense policy. 

“The payments increase with the extremity of the violence, with terrorists and their families earning thousands of dollars, free health care, and guaranteed government jobs,” Pletka and Ailinger wrote in a piece for RealClearWorld.com in July.  

In February, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the Palestinian Authority was ending the program that provides money to the family members of terrorists who were imprisoned, wounded, or killed while carrying out acts of terrorism against Israel.

However, experts cast doubt of whether the program was formally ended.  

“In reality, the end of ‘pay-to-slay‘ is largely illusory, a feint by Abbas that would simply transfer payments to another entity, the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment,” Pletka and Ailinger wrote, contending that Abbas only announced an end to the program to appease the Trump administration.  

It remains unclear who will rule Gaza following the formal end to the war between Israel and Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority has expressed an eagerness to run a post-Hamas Gaza.  

“How a government spends its money is an indication of its priorities,” Daniel Flesch, a Middle East and North Africa senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “And by incentivizing its people to attack and kill Israelis (and Americans, in the case of Army veteran Taylor Force), the [Palestinian Authority] demonstrates its motivation is not to build, but to destroy.”  

Force, a former U.S. Army officer, was killed in Israel in 2016 when a Palestinian terrorist stabbed him. The 28-year-old was working toward earning his MBA degree from Vanderbilt and was in Israel with fellow students to study entrepreneurship.  

“Instead of spending millions of dollars on infrastructure and improving the lives of its people, the [Palestinian Authority] instead chose to spend that money on killing Jews. This, in part, is why the [Palestinian Authority] is not viewed as a credible stabilizing force in Gaza or for the future of the region,” Flesch said.  

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