Eighteen months ago, Mohammed Abdel Basset al-Kharoub, a Palestinian Authority terrorist, shot and murdered 18-year old Ezra Schwartz, 51-year old Yaakov Don, and 24-year old Shadi Arafa at the Etzion Junction south of Jerusalem.
Schwartz, a yeshiva student from Sharon, Massachusetts, was studying in Beit Shemesh for a year after completing high school.
A military court found the terrorist guilty of the murders and in March handed down four consecutive life sentences, and required him to pay 250,000 shekels ($69,000) to the families of each of his victims.
Despite their heinous crimes, al-Kharoub and his fellow terrorists now sitting in Israeli prisons receive stipends from the Palestinian Authority and Fatah party – payments in honor of their murderous deeds.
Yet the Palestinian Authority itself continues to receive more than $1.3 billion in international aid every year – aid the PA claims it must receive in order to continue operating.
While the US Congress has taken steps in the past to deter the PA from paying jailed terrorists, the international community has largely ignored the problem or, at best, paid lip service to solving it.
This week, however, Ruth Schwartz, who lost her son Ezra on that fateful day in November 2015, will address the United Nations at a special forum focusing on the PA’s transparent support for terrorism.
The forum, to be held this Wednesday at the UN headquarters in New York, is being organized by the Israeli delegation to the UN, headed by Ambassador Danny Danon.
“The reprehensible terrorists who killed Ezra receives more than $3,000 a month from the Palestinian Authority as a reward for killing innocent people. Foreign aid contributed to the PA by the international community is exploited by the Palestinians and used to support terrorism,” said Danon.
“We call on the Security Council to act to cease these payments and finally put an end to the Palestinian support for terrorism,” the Ambassador continued.
Speaking ahead of the event, Schwartz noted that “after Ezra was killed, his murderer was apprehended, convicted and sentenced to four life sentences in prison. This very same terrorist who violently cut Ezra’s life short, is paid by the PA as a reward for killing our son. He knew that the more people he killed, the more he would be paid. We have lost our child and will never get him back and our children suffer each day as they continue their lives without their brother.”
Schwartz also pointed out that “while Israel punishes the perpetrators, and seeks to deter possible future terrorists with significant prison time, the PA is supporting and encouraging such hatred with financial incentives. The world cannot stand silently by as the PA continues to raise the next generation of Palestinian terrorists.”