According to Palestinian Authority law, all Palestinians arrested for security offenses, which includes those who committed terror attacks, receive a PA salary from the date of arrest until the day of release. These salaries increase according to the amount of time the terrorist remains in prison and range from 1,400 shekels to 12,000 shekels per month. While the PA claims to foreign governments that these payments are "social welfare benefits" and not salaries, PMW has shown that this is false. (See appendix below)
The ICRC supplies the forms that enable the payments to terrorists
The PA Regulation 18 (2010), which established procedures for the PA payments to terrorist prisoners, states that a "wakil" - an "authorized agent" or "power of attorney" - will be appointed by the prisoner to determine who receives his salary. The regulation gives the prisoner the right to designate people other than his wife or parents. Appointment of an "agent" can be authorized only by the prisoner's signature on a special form. It is the ICRC that visits the prisoners and brings the form for the prisoners to sign. (...)
Accordingly, the ICRC by supplying this form is facilitating salary payments to terrorists, something that is not part of the humanitarian work of the ICRC.
Based on the above findings, the Director of PMW's Legal Department notified the ICRC and asked for their response.
The ICRC in its response differentiated between two types of prisoners, "internees" and "detainees." "Detainees" includes those arrested, indicted or convicted of terrorism (see articles 66, 69 and 76 of Fourth Geneva Convention - GCIV), which includes the imprisoned Palestinian terrorists. In its response to PMW, about the "detainees" the ICRC referred to article 10 of GCIV which provides:
"The provisions of the present Convention constitute no obstacle to the humanitarian activities which the International Committee of the Red Cross or any other impartial humanitarian organization may, subject to the consent of the Parties to the conflict concerned, undertake for the protection of civilian persons and for their relief." (Emphasis added)
Since facilitating the payments of salaries to terrorists is not something the ICRC is compelled by GCIV to provide, and is certainly not part of the humanitarian work of the ICRC, all services to "detainees" requires the "consent of the Parties." This means that the ICRC cannot facilitate these payments to terrorists without the consent of the Israeli government.
While it is unclear whether the ICRC knew, prior to PMW's query, that the PA is using the form it provides as a means to pay the terrorist salaries, the ICRC's response to PMW's inquiry stated that the organization provides the function as a "humanitarian" activity. (...)
Appendix The PA salaries to imprisoned terrorists is not humanitarian or social welfare for families but is in fact a salary to the terrorist prisoner himself
PA payments to terrorists are not social welfare for the families but are salaries to the terrorists themselves. The PA law itself uses the term "salary" [See: Palestinian Authority Government resolution # 23 of 2010 and Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011]; an attempt by some PA members to change the language of the law from "salary" to "social assistance" was blocked and the law remained unchanged [See: Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake - WAFA news agency, Dec. 27, 2012 and Chairman of the Prisoners' Club Qadura Fares - Al-Quds Internet edition, Dec. 27, 2012]; the payment is paid based on "time served" by the terrorist and irrespective of financial needs of the family of the terrorist [See: Al-Quds, Jan. 3, 2010, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011] and is subject to income tax [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011]. Single prisoners receive the same basic high salaries as those married with children. While social welfare benefits are universally calculated as a portion of the minimum or average salary, the salaries paid to the terrorists are quite clearly not social welfare benefits, as they are based on the number of years a prisoner has served time in jail.
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