Why did Israel withhold some tax revenue collected for the Palestinian Authority in 2019?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Oslo Accords: Declaration of Principles on Palestinian Self-Rule — Palestinian Authority U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton (center) looking on as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) shakes hands with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after the signing of the Declaration of Principles on Palestinian Self-Rule, September 1993.

In 2019, Israel began withholding a portion of the tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to protest the PA's system of welfare payments to the families of Palestinians who were imprisoned by Israel or killed by the Israel Defense Forces.12

Israel argued that these payments, which critics often refer to as "pay for slay," incentivized terrorism and rewarded violence. The amount withheld by Israel was proportional to the monthly stipends the PA distributed to these families. In response to this deduction, the PA initially rejected the remaining tax revenue, leading to severe fiscal strain, before eventually agreeing to accept the reduced funds in late August 2019.321