Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich seizes nearly 1 billion shekels in frozen Palestinian Authority funds, redirecting them to families of terror victims in a bold financial strike against terror incentives.
Fresh from his India visit, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday signed off on the seizure and offset of Palestinian Authority (PA) funds, ensuring the money would be redirected to the families of terror victims instead of terrorist affiliates.
In the past month alone, the Finance Ministry has successfully transferred 90 million shekels in compensation to bereaved families. Alongside this, an additional 900 million shekels of PA funds—frozen due to the Authority’s practice of rewarding terrorists’ families—are now being seized and processed for transfer.
Smotrich emphasized the policy shift:
“Instead of the Palestinian Authority transferring money to terrorist families, we will transfer the money to the families of terror victims. The fight against terror is conducted not only on the battlefield but also with economic tools.”
Declaring this a cornerstone of his agenda since taking office, Smotrich vowed that the government will no longer permit financial incentives for terror and will stand firmly with victims’ families.
This move underscores Israel’s growing reliance on economic warfare as a strategic extension of its security doctrine—striking at the financial backbone that fuels terror infrastructure.
