The Jerusalem Enforcement and Collection Authority has recovered NIS 149 million from funds belonging to the Palestinian Authority, which were transferred to 124 compensation cases for families of terror victims. The beneficiaries include relatives of those murdered in attacks at Café Moment, Bus Line 32, Café Hillel, Ben Yehuda Street, Sarona and other locations. The funds were collected as compensation for acts of terrorism.
The money was seized by the Jerusalem Enforcement Office and transferred to the legal representatives of families of those murdered or injured in terror attacks, in accordance with court judgments issued against terrorists, the Palestinian Authority and additional Palestinian organizations.
The Enforcement and Collection Authority is responsible for collecting financial obligations set by court rulings, including punitive and civil damages awarded to families of terror victims. Despite the difficulty of collecting payments directly from terrorists serving prison sentences, liens placed on stipends transferred to them by the Palestinian Authority enabled the enforcement of the judgments.
The liens imposed in enforcement proceedings resulted in the transfer of a total of NIS 149 million across 124 separate cases. Each case was opened on the basis of a final judgment issued by Israeli courts, awarding compensation to families of terror victims.
Among the cases was one filed following the 2001 bombing on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered. In that case, a judgment issued in 2024 against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization awarded NIS 10 million in compensation under Israel’s Victims of Hostile Actions Compensation Law.
Another case concerned the 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem’s Beit Yisrael neighborhood, carried out by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, in which ten civilians, including six children, were murdered. Funds were also transferred to the families of victims of the 2002 shooting attack in Karmei Tzur, in which three Israelis were murdered and five others wounded.
Additional transfers were made to cases involving families of those murdered in the 2002 Café Moment bombing in Jerusalem, in which 11 Israelis were murdered; the Bus Line 32 attack at the Pat Junction, where 19 people were murdered; and the 2003 Café Hillel bombing, in which seven people were murdered and 57 wounded.
Further funds were transferred in connection with the 2004 bus 19 attack in Jerusalem, the 2016 Sarona Market attack, the 2020 murder in a forest in northern Samaria, the vehicular ramming attack on the Armon HaNatziv promenade, the 2018 shooting attack at Givat Asaf, the 2019 ramming attack near Mevo Dotan, the 2019 shooting attack at a spring near Dolev, and the 2023 shooting attack at the gas station in Eli.