The State Department determined that the PA has violated a long list of its commitments to the United States, including ending ‘pay-to-slay’ and the glorification of terrorism in educational materials
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has paid salaries to convicted terrorists Israel released from its prisons as part of its October 2025 ceasefire agreement with Hamas, the State Department formally determined in a non-public report to Congress obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The State Department’s mandatory report—compiled between August 2025 and January 2026—marks the first U.S. government determination that the PA has “provided payments to convicted terrorists released from Israeli prisons in October 2025 under President Trump’s 20-point peace plan.”
The notice to Congress confirms a similar conclusion the State Department made in January, when it noted that, even though PA president Mahmoud Abbas claimed in 2025 that he had scrapped the so-called pay-to-slay program, his government had still doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families. As the Free Beacon reported in February, the PA transitioned last year to concealing those payments from Western governments by funneling them through a newly established welfare authority. The most recent State Department report confirms that a portion of those funds has gone to the terrorists released in October.
The State Department report comes about six months after the beginning of President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire, which included a commitment from Abbas that the PA would undertake a series of reforms, including ending pay-to-slay. The notice to Congress demonstrates that he and his government have not followed through in any meaningful way.
The PA appears to have gone further since the end of the period covered in the State Department report. Abbas’s Fatah party “announced that terrorists who have been imprisoned for more than 20 years will be granted leadership positions,” according to the Palestinian Media Watch research group. Fatah Revolutionary Council member Tayseer Nasrallah said in a televised interview in March that these terrorists will serve as members in the upcoming Eighth Fatah Conference, the forum at which the PA sets government policy.
The State Department report includes other examples of the PA violating the terms of its agreements with the United States. The PA “incited and glorified violence, including on social media and media outlets,” and “supported terrorism via educational materials and summer camps” that teach children jihadist ideologies, the notice states.
The report includes instances in which Abbas’s government broke its promises to resolve conflicts with Israel “through negotiations and exclusively peaceful means,” including efforts “to bypass direct negotiations” by pushing for the creation of a Palestinian state at the United Nations. Moreover, the State Department told Congress, Palestinian leaders endorsed “lawfare against Israel” in their pursuit of war crimes cases at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
The State Department revoked the visas of members of Abbas’s government ahead of the September U.N. General Assembly, the first time the U.S. government had denied Palestinian representatives permission to attend the U.N. gathering, over their “attempts to bypass negotiations” through pursuing those war crimes cases. The recent report to Congress notes that the U.S. government has continued its “blanket denial” of U.S. visas to all Palestinian government officials, a policy that “will remain in effect for six months” or until the next State Department report, at which point it will be renewed if the PA has not engaged in necessary reforms.
The report includes additional instances of Palestinian officials meddling in Israel’s international affairs, including instances in which those officials “actively tried to dissuade additional countries from entering the Abraham Accords.” The PA also “fully supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that has sought to undermine and delegitimize Israel” even as it officially disavowed the Arab League boycott of Israel.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the shortcomings documented in the report confirm that the PA has no intention of becoming a serious partner for peace.
“The Palestinian Authority has been inciting terrorism and undermining peace for decades,” he told the Free Beacon. “They’ve never lived up to the commitments they’ve made to the United States, and they’ve always been allowed to get away with it. President Trump has made it clear that their behavior is unacceptable, and much more should be done to hold them accountable for the violence they cause.”
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