NPR is out with a report downplaying the Palestinian Authority’s pay-to-slay program that has long provided cash payments to terrorists, describing it as "a controversial program that pays the families of Palestinians who are detained in Israeli jails or killed or injured by the Israeli military." The report also suggests the PA has ended the program, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
"The Palestinian Authority, which governs much of the West Bank, has promised elections this year for the first time in 15 years," All Things Considered host Ailsa Chang said Monday, introducing a segment reported by NPR’s Emily Feng. "They want to prove that they are ready to run a full-fledged Palestinian state one day."
"And to prove that, they’ve also stopped a controversial program that pays the families of Palestinians who are detained in Israeli jails or killed or injured by the Israeli military," she said.
The piece quoted Qadura Fares, the former head of the PA’s prisoners’ affairs commission, who was imprisoned for trying to kill an Israeli soldier. "He says Palestinians will fight the Israeli occupation whether their families get paid or not. He himself was in prison starting in the 1980s for trying to kill Israeli soldiers."
"The money—it's mean nothing for those have believed that this occupation should be ended and to fight the occupation," Fares told NPR. "These people is a freedom fighter. These people—we feel proud."
Feng also quoted a woman who claimed to no longer receive pay-to-slay payments. "‘I wanted to be the mother of a doctor, not a martyr,’ she says. After her son’s death, the Palestinian Authority used to give her 1,400 shekels a month, about $440 U.S. now. But they stopped those payments this summer because those payments are despised within Israel."
The segment was met with backlash from the watchdog group Honest Reporting. "No, @NPR, this isn’t the reason the PA program is ‘controversial,’" the group said. "The recipients of the cash are families of TERRORISTS—not Palestinians who committed minor crimes or were innocently caught in the crossfire, but bona fide terrorists whom you appear to be whitewashing."
Recent evidence from the State Department shows that the PA paid more than $200 million to terrorists and their families in 2025, the same year it claimed to have ended the payments, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Instead of ending the scheme, the PA shifted to a new system that it tried to hide from international donors, under the guise of "social welfare."
The NPR piece referenced the new system, known in Arabic as Tamkeen, but said it was meant "to help struggling Palestinian families, including those who no longer get prisoner payments."
The segment also doubted the new program's efficacy, in spite of the State Department's evidence. Of the 20 families of terrorists that NPR interviewed, only two were able to find the new welfare office, but hadn’t heard back yet. One father—who stopped receiving pay-to-slay payments for his imprisoned son—was told to apply for the welfare program.
"He refused to," Feng said. "‘It’s an insult to my dignity,’ he says. Palestinians like Kaffri feel the prisoners’ payments were reparations for their loss of freedom or of life and not acts of charity."
