Israeli court rulings demanding payments from Palestinian Authority tax funds to families of Israelis killed in Palestinian resistance operations have been stalled for years
News Desk - The Cradle
Israel Hayom reported on 11 June that Smotrich's order has cleared the way for dozens of legal rulings to be enforced that had been stalled for years. The funds, some amounting to millions of shekels per family, were awarded by Israeli courts and will be transferred in the coming days. About half of the recognized cases are of Palestinians who collaborated with Israel and were allegedly tortured by the PA.
Some of the court rulings stretch back as far as 20 years. The PA has refused the transfers, and Israeli authorities did not seek to confiscate the funds.
In recent years, a number of laws have been enacted that opened a legal door to the confiscation of the funds, but the security establishment opposed this for fear of harming the economic stability of the PA. But with Finance Minister Smotrich's order, this has now changed.
The confiscation will be made from the tax money that Israel collects for the PA.
Israel Hayom says hundreds of lawsuits and appeals in various cases against the PA are still pending, and the legal proceedings in their case have not yet been completed.
The Ministry of Finance says that Smotrich's decision could also lead to a wave of new lawsuits against the PA.
The confiscation of 130 million shekels from the PA funds follows other steps Smotrich took regarding the PA. After the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October, Smotrich blocked the transfer of payments to PA personnel in the strip, claiming Hamas would use them.
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