Palestinian Officials Decry Abbas' Decree on Prisoners Payments

 Qadura Fares, the Palestinian official responsible for prisoner affairs, speaks during a press conference, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)
Qadura Fares, the Palestinian official responsible for prisoner affairs, speaks during a press conference, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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Palestinian Officials Decry Abbas' Decree on Prisoners Payments

 Qadura Fares, the Palestinian official responsible for prisoner affairs, speaks during a press conference, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)
Qadura Fares, the Palestinian official responsible for prisoner affairs, speaks during a press conference, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Several Palestinian officials on Tuesday denounced President Mahmoud Abbas' decree ending payments to the families of those killed by Israel or imprisoned in Israeli jails, including many detained for attacks on Israelis.

The decree, issued the day before and which is expected to affect tens of thousands of people, transfers the administration of these payments to an independent foundation.

Qadura Fares, head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority's committee overseeing prisoner affairs, called for the decree's immediate withdrawal, warning that it will impact "approximately 35,000 to 40,000" families both inside and outside the Palestinian territories.

"I urge you to reconsider this matter and withdraw this decree", Fares said at a press conference in Ramallah.

He added that such a significant decision should have been discussed at all levels of the Palestinian political leadership, arguing that "allowances for prisoners have always been a point of consensus" among Palestinian factions.

In a separate statement, Fares said that a civil society organization, the Palestinian Economic Empowerment Foundation, will now manage these payments and conduct audits to "verify the financial hardship" of prisoners and their families.

According to the official WAFA news agency, all those who previously benefited from payments would be "subject to the same standards applied without discrimination to all families benefiting from protection and social welfare programs".

Also present at the press conference was Hilmi al-Araj, head of the Center for the Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights, who called for the decree to be "rescinded as though it never existed," condemning both "its timing and its content, as the prisoners are on the verge of freedom."

Araj was referring to the ongoing prisoner releases coordinated with Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

The existing law, passed in 2004, classified all Palestinian prisoners as government employees and provided them or their families with salaries based on factors such as sentence length, according to the decree.

Tuesday's press conference followed a meeting of Palestinian factions, according to a representative from one of the national groups who spoke to AFP.

Abbas' decree came in response to a US request and repeated Israeli pressure on the Palestinian Authority to abolish what critics refer to as the "Pay for-Slay" program.

The Israeli government argues that the scheme incentivizes violence against Israelis and considers it "funding and support for terrorism."

Israel has repeatedly used these financial allowances as a reason to freeze tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian movement and rival to Abbas government Hamas denounced the decision in a statement Monday evening, calling for its "immediate reversal".



US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH

The United States will keep backing Syria’s government and has no “Plan B” to working with it to unite the war‑scarred country back together, still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence, US envoy Tom Barrack said on Monday.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barrack – Washington’s ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy for Syria, who is also on a short assignment in Lebanon – called last week’s Israeli strikes inside Syria “badly timed” and said they had “complicated efforts to stabilize the region.”

Barrack spoke in Beirut after more than a week of clashes in Sweida province between Druze militiamen and Sunni Bedouin tribes.

Over the weekend he brokered what he described as a limited ceasefire between Syria and Israel, aimed only at halting the fighting in Sweida. Syrian government troops have since redeployed in the area and evacuated civilians from both communities on Monday, he said.

Barrack told the AP that “the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but that “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

Regarding Israel’s strikes on Syria, Barrack said: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”

However, he said Israel’s intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”

Prior to the violence in Sweida, Israel and Syria had been in talks over security matters, while the Trump administration had been pushing them to move toward full normalization of diplomatic relations.

When the latest fighting erupted, “Israel’s view was that south of Damascus was this questionable zone, so that whatever happened militarily in that zone needed to be agreed upon and discussed with them,” Barrack said. “The new government (in Syria) coming in was not exactly of that belief.”

The ceasefire announced Saturday between Syria and Israel is a limited agreement addressing only the conflict in Sweida, he said. It does not address broader issues including Israel’s contention that the area south of Damascus should be a demilitarized zone.

In the discussions leading up to the ceasefire, Barrack said “both sides did the best they can” to reach agreement on specific questions related to the movement of Syrian forces and equipment from Damascus to Sweida.

He suggested that Israel would prefer to see Syria fragmented and divided rather than a strong central state in control of the country.

Later Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that Israel’s strikes “were the only way to stop the massacre of the Druze in Syria, the brothers of our brothers the Israeli Druze”.

Katz added: “Anyone who criticizes the attacks is unaware of the facts,” he continued. It was not clear if he was responding to Barrack’s comments.

Damascus has been negotiating with the Kurdish forces that control much of northeast Syria to implement an agreement that would merge the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces with the new national army.