Days after the Biden administration gave its blessing to a newly formed Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank, the PA handed out dozens of bonus payments for security forces who were involved in attacks on Israelis.
According to the PA's official news outlets, the Palestinian General Intelligence Service on April 4 provided a grant to 36 families of agency officials who died or were imprisoned as a result of their involvement in anti-Israel security crimes.
The grant is the latest blow to President Joe Biden's nascent peace plan, which involves empowering a "Revitalized" PA to govern a future Palestinian state that can coexist alongside Israel.
Officials in the Biden administration have demanded that the PA be reformed and then given administrative control over Gaza following Israel's war against Hamas, the rival Palestinian faction that rules the territory.
At least two ministers in the new U.S.-approved PA government have advocated terrorism against Jews, and a Palestinian official who oversees "Pay for slay" has explicitly rejected Biden officials' claims that the authority is poised to significantly reform the program.
"The United States is undermining its own goals by funding the PA," Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group that flagged the grant, told the Washington Free Beacon.
"Now, the United States is saying, 'Send Palestinian security services into Gaza,'" Marcus said.
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