Last week, the Tel Aviv Administrative Court rejected a petition submitted by 15 security prisoners and their families. The petition attempted to nullify administrative seizure orders which led to the seizure of hundreds of thousands of shekels, which the security prisoners received as a reward from the Palestinian Authority for perpetrating terrorist attacks (petition no. 59090-06-20 Na'amna & brothers vs. State of Israel).
The rejection of petitioners' request, all of whom are Israeli citizens that perpetrated or assisted in perpetrating terrorist attacks, joins the precedential ruling of July 2020. That precedential ruling rejected the petition of the family of an Israeli citizen, the security prisoner Fakhri Mansour, against the seizure of monies which they received from the Palestinian Authority as a reward for the terror crime that he perpetrated. Mansour was sentenced to twenty years in prison for transporting the terrorist who carried out a suicide attack in the Hadera Market in October 2005.
The seizure of the money paid by the Palestinian Authority to Israeli citizens is a procedure led by the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) in the Ministry of Defense, together with IDF Military Intelligence, the Israeli Security Agency, the Israeli Prison Service, Israel Police, and the Ministry of Justice. To date, this system has confiscated assets worth a total of hundreds of thousands of shekel which had been transferred to prisoners and their families.
Defense Minister Lt. Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz stated: "Along with the return of the coordination with the Palestinian Authority, we will not allow them to incentivize terrorism. We will continue to fight against terrorism in every way – in the field, through the intelligence community, and also via financial means."
The terrorists whose petition was rejected by the court included: Maher Abed al-Latif Yunes who was part of the cell which killed Avraham Brumberg in 1980; Bashir Abdallah al-Hatib, who killed Haim Taktok in Ramle in 1988; Ibrahim Naif Abu Mokh, who was part of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine's cell which was responsible for the kidnapping and killing of Moshe Tamam in 1984; and Shtila Suleiman Abu Iyada, who perpetrated a stabbing attack in Rosh Ha'ayin in 2016.