Sa’ar slams Abbas for ‘pledging loyalty’ to, paying terror prisoners

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar slammed Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday evening for continuing to reward terrorism, including through Ramallah’s “pay-for-slay” policy.

Jerusalem’s top diplomat was responding to a statement in which Abbas pledged Ramallah’s “loyalty” to the “sacrifices” of Palestinian terrorist “martyrs,” prisoners and wounded, as well as their families, calling support for them a “national commitment.”

The P.A. leader “did so while continuing to lie about ending the P.A.'s distorted policy of paying salaries to these despicable terrorists and their families,” Sa’ar wrote in his English post on the X platform.

Instead of ending all payments to terrorists, Abbas is “disguising many of them as payments to pensioners and salaries of the P.A. Security Services,” wrote the foreign minister, adding, “The international community must hold the P.A. accountable for ‘Pay for Slay’!”

The authority in 2025 nearly doubled its payments to convicted terrorists and families of those killed while carrying out attacks, despite repeated claims to have halted the practice, Sa’ar revealed last month.

Last year, the P.A. disbursed $144 million in payments rewarding attacks against Israeli civilians. In 2025, it has already committed $214 million to this end, “and the year isn’t even over,” Sa’ar wrote in an X post on Nov. 19.

Sa’ar told reporters in Budapest on Oct. 27 that “contrary to the P.A.'s promises in English, they are continuing their ‘pay-for-slay’ policy.

“Paying salaries to terrorists and their families for murdering Jews and Israelis has been Palestinian law since 2004 and until this very day. They just changed the method. The terrorists are collecting their payments from the Palestinian post office,” he said.

Abbas said on Feb. 21 that Ramallah would not deduct “a single penny” from payments to terrorist prisoners and the so-called Martyrs’ Fund, despite a statement earlier in the month that some countries had interpreted as signaling an end to the policy.

“We again emphasize that we are proud of the sacrifices made by the martyrs, prisoners and wounded,” the P.A. chief declared in a speech.

“I told you once and I stand by my word: Even if we have [only] one penny left, it is for the prisoners and the martyrs,” Abbas continued, echoing remarks he made during a 2018 address in Ramallah.