On June 30, three years ago, a 17-year old Palestinian man broke into the Ariel home in Kiryat Arba, entered the room where 13-year old Hallel was sleeping and stabbed her to death. The terrorist then attacked a member of the volunteer neighborhood security association who entered the room in response to an alarm. The girl’s father, Rabbi Amichai Ariel entered the room, firing two shots at the perpetrator and hitting him once. The terrorist exited the house, stabbing two other Jewish guards before he was shot and killed.
Before the attack, the Palestinian terrorist boasted on Facebook that he wanted to die as a martyr killing Jews. He expressed a desire to “avenge” his cousin, who was shot and killed after ramming his car into an Israeli military vehicle, injuring three Israeli soldiers. After the attack on Hallel, the terrorist’s mother praised her son as a martyr defending Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque and urged others to follow in his path. The terrorist’s mother posted a video on YouTube just a few weeks after the murder, saying that “my son is a hero. He made me proud.”
On Sunday, the third anniversary of Hallel’s murder, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) published a disturbing update.
“Since the murder, the Palestinian Authority has paid the family over 50,000 shekels ($14,000), just because their son murdered an Israeli 13-year-old girl and died a ‘Martyr’ as they call it,” PMW wrote.
This money was allocated from a budget labeled the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund for the purpose of paying a monthly cash stipend to the families of Palestinians killed, injured or imprisoned for involvement in attacking, assisting in attacking, or planning to attack Israelis. It is difficult to determine precisely how much money is paid to terrorists. The PA is frequently criticized for this policy of rewarding terrorist so they try to obfuscate the actual figures. Last year, PMW reported that the PA Martyr’s Fund annual payments to terrorists and their families were $355 million, or 7.47 percent of the PA’s $4.76 billion operating budget.
Under the Amended Palestinian Prisoners Law, prisoners who have served a year or more in an Israeli prison are entitled upon release to health insurance and tuition-free school, university and professional education. Private charities including the U.S. based Holyland Foundation have been accused of funding the stipends.
On 23 March 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Taylor Force Act into law, which will cut about a third of US foreign aid payments to the PA,[36] until the PA ceases making payment of stipends to terrorists and their surviving families.
