A Ramallah Administrative Court ruled on May 4, 2026 that the Palestinian Authority had no valid basis to cut off the stipend of a prisoner named Firas Ahmad Hassan. The payments stopped in mid-2025.
The Independent Commission for Human Rights says the decision could matter well beyond one case. In its view it “could serve as a precedent for reinstating payments to approximately 1,600 other prisoners whose stipends were cut.” Hassan was among those 1,600, and the commission had filed suit over his suspension in August 2025.
What the lawyer argued
Attorney Ahmad Nasra built the case on Article 22 of the amended Basic Law, which describes care for the families of prisoners and the dead as “a duty whose provisions are regulated by law.” The court set aside what it called an implied decision to suspend the salary.
Palestinian Media Watch drew attention to what the Authority did not say. According to its account, the PA “didn’t even try to argue that the prisoner wasn’t entitled to a salary” and pointed instead to a technical reason. Nasra put it this way: “They did not argue whether the prisoner is entitled or not entitled to a salary.”
The reform claim
Palestinian Media Watch and the commentators who cited it say the ruling cuts against the Authority’s message to Western governments. In February 2025 Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree that moved the payments to a separate institution, and the PA presented that as a restructuring. Writing in Israel National News, Dr. Alex Grobman argued that the court “has now provided the clearest evidence yet that the underlying legal and political commitment remains intact.”
A U.S. State Department notification reported that the PA distributed roughly $156 million in such stipends during 2025, Grobman noted. Those are the critics’ claims. The Authority has not said whether it will appeal the Ramallah ruling.
Sources
- PA Court Rules: Terrorists Must Get Pay-for-Slay Salaries, No Exceptions
- PA's Pay-for-Slay 'Con Game' Revealed by Ramallah Court Decision, Watchdog Says
- When Pay-for-Slay Came Out of the Closet (Dr. Alex Grobman)
