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The Palestinian Authority, which governs much of the West Bank, has promised elections this year for the first time in 15 years. They want to prove that they are ready to run a full-fledged Palestinian state one day. And to prove that they've also stopped a controversial program that pays the families of Palestinians who are detained in Israeli jails or killed or injured by the Israeli military. NPR's Emily Feng reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Arabic).
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: One of the first things anyone sees when walking into Inaan Hamed's house are the faces of the dead.
INAAN HAMED: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: They're the faces of her brother-in-law, her brother and, despite her best efforts, her 17-year-old son Abdulrahman, who was fatally shot two years ago by an Israeli soldier after getting into a shouting match with the man.
HAMED: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Her son was unarmed, she said.
HAMED: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: "I wanted to be the mother of a doctor, not a martyr," she says. After her son's death, the Palestinian Authority used to give her 1,400 shekels a month, about $440 U.S. now, but they stopped those payments this summer because those payments are despised within Israel.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: You should know that the Palestinian Authorities pays terrorists to slay Jews.
FENG: That's Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the United Nations last September. In 2018, U.S. Congress passed legislation cutting off some aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it stopped such payments. And under pressure to reform, last February, the PA's president signed a decree ending the fund.
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GIDEON SA'AR: They ignore the distorted ongoing crime of pay-for-slay.
FENG: Though Israeli leaders, like its foreign minister here back in October, accused the PA of secretly continuing what Israel calls pay-to-slay payments, payments the PA's critics say incentivize violence, a charge the PA pushes back against.
QADURA FARES: The money - it's mean nothing for those have believed that this occupation should be ended and to fight the occupation.
FENG: This is Qadura Fares, who used to head the PA's prisoners' affairs commission. He says Palestinians will fight the Israeli occupation whether their families get paid or not. He himself was in prison starting in the 1980s for trying to kill Israeli soldiers.
FARES: These people is a freedom fighter. These people - we feel proud.
FENG: As part of broader PA reforms, the PA says it has set up a new social welfare organization. It's called Tamkeen and is meant to help struggling Palestinian families, including those who no longer get prisoner payments. NPR interviewed nearly 20 families who once got PA payments for their injured, dead or imprisoned relatives. Only two of those families had been able to find out where the Tamkeen office was, and they never heard back. The office itself did not respond to NPR's requests for comment. Tamkeen is illusory, says this man in the Palestinian refugee camp of al-Am'ari. There's nothing there. He didn't want to be named because his family is trying to apply for benefits.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: "Email sent to the Tamkeen office bounced back," he says. No one ever calls back.
JAMAL AL KAFFRI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Jamal Al Kaffri's son was held in administrative detention by Israel for 23 months, eventually released without any charges. Normally, the PA would have paid his son's salary while he was in prison, but no longer. Instead, they told Al Kaffri to apply for welfare.
AL KAFFRI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: He refused to. "It's an insult to my dignity," he says. Palestinians like Kaffri feel the prisoners' payments were reparations for their loss of freedom or of life and not acts of charity. Fares, the former head of the prisoners' commission, quit his position in protest over the payments issue.
FARES: We will not be able to implement what we promised the Palestinian people.
FENG: And he warns the PA risks losing legitimacy among Palestinians.
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FARES: What does it mean if you win the war and you lose your people?
FENG: Meaning, in trying to please outside powers, they risk losing power themselves. Emily Feng, NPR News, Silwad, the West Bank. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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