Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop paying salaries to the families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, Israeli media reported on Saturday. Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post published a link to a video in which Netanyahu said in Hebrew: “I think the first test of peace is to say to them, ‘Hey, you want peace? Prove it. Confront terrorism, stop rewarding terrorism, stop paying terrorists. It could be more than a billion dollars that is given to terrorists. I am not talking about Hamas. I am talking about the mainline PA headed by the president, who is going to see Trump in Washington.” Netanyahu also called for stopping payments to the families of Palestinian martyrs, referring to them as families of “people who killed Israeli citizens”.
Currently, about 1,500 Palestinian prisoners who are being held in Israeli jails have been on hunger strike for eight days, calling for improving detention conditions. Rights groups said that there are about 6,500 Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails, including 62 women and 400 children in 22 prisons.
Source: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170424-netanyahu-calls-on-pa-to-stop…
