The Jerusalem District Court has ordered the Palestinian Authority to pay five Palestinians compensation totaling some 8 million shekels ($2.3 million) after they were tortured by P.A. forces over allegations of “collaborating” with Israeli authorities.
The rulings were first reported by Israel’s Maariv daily on Sunday.
Judge Miriam Ilany said that the P.A. “is responsible for the unlawful imprisonment and torture of the cooperators,” adding that Ramallah’s ongoing conduct “constitutes a blatant violation of basic human rights.”
Ilany also wrote that “this is not only about the loss of the plaintiffs’ freedom but also about prolonged physical and psychological torture that has left lifelong scars.”
The Jerusalem-based Arbus, Kedem, Tzur law firm, which represented the Palestinians, as well as Israeli terror victims, said the court rulings send “a clear message that the State of Israel will stand behind anyone who extends a hand to it in its struggle against terrorism.”
“These rulings are not just about compensation but also about holding accountable an evil authority that perpetuates terrorism,” the firm said.
The Jerusalem law firm is currently involved in a Supreme Court case that is seeking to expand the scope of Israel’s law on punitive damages to include those who cooperated with the Jewish state, in an effort to provide additional compensation to Palestinian torture victims.
In September, the Jerusalem District Court issued rulings ordering the P.A. to compensate three Palestinian “collaborators” who were tortured to the tune of some 3 million shekels ($840,000)
Among other torture methods, the victims were reportedly beaten all over their bodies with rifles, batons and electric cables, denied sleep and access to a bathroom, forced to drink soap and had their teeth broken. Their families’ lives were also threatened.
“It is hard to believe that the Israeli courts would recognize a defense that cooperation with Israel is an act of treason in favor of the Israeli enemy,” Ilany ruled. “In addition, those acts of ‘treason’ were intended to prevent acts of terrorism against Israel and against Israelis, which the P.A. pledged to prevent in the [Oslo Accords] interim agreement.”
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, which the Jewish state signed with Palestinian terror leader Yasser Arafat in the 1990s, the newly created P.A. was tasked with fighting terrorism in parts of Judea and Samaria.
According to Ilany, the P.A. “is entitled to protect its security and act against spies and collaborators, as long as this does not harm the security interests of Israel, which left security responsibility in [the P.A.’s] hands.”
On Sept. 4, Kedem won a provisional order allowing a group of Israeli families who have lost loved ones to terror to seize 160 million shekels ($42 million) in P.A. funds frozen by Jerusalem pending proceedings.
The suit marked the first action taken since Israel’s Knesset passed the “Compensation for Terror Victims Bill” in March. The law requires courts to award punitive damages of 10 million shekels ($2.66 million) per fatality.
To ease the collection of the punitive awards by victims and their heirs, judgments may be enforced against “any property of the defendant, including any property seized or frozen by the State of Israel.”
The P.A. has one of the largest per capita security forces in the world, trained and armed by the United States and other Western nations. The Biden administration wants the P.A. to assume control of the Gaza Strip after the war against Hamas ends, a move that Jerusalem has so far resisted.