PA doubles salary of terrorist responsible for murder of three Israeli teens
Hussam Hassan Kawasme, the Hamas terrorist responsible for the planning of the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the summer of 2014, has received a significant pay hike from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and his monthly pay will double from NIS 2,000 to NIS 4,000.
Funeral of the three kidnapped Israeli youths Photo by Hillel Maeir/TPS
As the organizer of the infamous attack, Kawasme has already been paid NIS 98,400 ($27,640) by the PA since his arrest.
Kawasme was the mastermind of the kidnapping of the three teens, Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frankel, and Eyal Yifrach, who were on their way home from school in Gush Etzion on the night of June 12 when they were kidnapped and murdered by Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha, who dumped their bodies in a shallow grave.
Kawasme was sentenced to three life terms in prison by an IDF military court in January 2015. The court further ordered him to pay NIS 250,000 to each of the three families.
Kawasme was convicted of leading the terror cell, including receiving NIS 200,000 from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, purchasing and providing weapons for the terrorist cell, purchasing the abduction car, hiding the bodies and destroying evidence.
The IDF prosecutor stated that Kawasme did not see the boys as humans, “and therefore it was possible to slaughter and just dump [the bodies] into the ground.”
“While the Israeli public holds memorial events marking the fifth anniversary of the abduction and murder of the three boys, the PA is doubling the salary of the mastermind behind the attack,” Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which reported on the pay hike, stated.
In total, the PA has paid over NIS 350,000 (over $ 98,000) in rewards to Kawawsme and to the families of the other two terrorists who carried out the attack and who were later killed by Israeli Special Forces while resisting arrest.
Maurice Hirsch, currently the head of legal strategies at PMW, previously served as head of the military prosecutions for Judea and Samaria, and the Kawasme case was one of the most prominent events during his tenure.
“Having dealt personally with the prosecution of Kawasme, and having seen the evil that he represents, it is unfathomable to me that the PA pays this murderer anything,” he stated. “But this sadly is the reality. The PA pays millions of shekels to terrorists every day. For the PA it doesn’t matter whether you belong to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Fatah, whether you murdered children, women or the elderly, what is important is that you were involved in terrorism against Israel and Israelis. The PA’s “Pay for Slay” policy must end.”
Kawasme’s raise is a function of the 2004 PA Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners, in which the PA codified its own obligation to pay monthly salaries to terrorists, and the outcome of the 2010 PA government regulations “Regarding the Regulation of Payment of the Monthly Salary to the Prisoner,” which established the pay scale according to which the PA pays the terrorist prisoners and released terrorist prisoners.
It is of significance to note that while seemingly suffering from a financial crisis, the PA in the first five months of 2019 has paid over NIS 234 million (over $ 65 million) in rewards to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners.
This reflected an 11.8 percent rise in the PA payments to the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners compared to 2018. These figures do not include the PA payments to the dead terrorists.
