image Photo: Flash90

Israel to seize Palestinian terrorist funds

Israeli Alternate Premier and Defense Minister Benny Gantz has signed four orders authorizing the seizure of funds and property that Hamas transferred to families of terrorists in Israel.

According to a statement sent by the Israeli Defense Ministry to TV7, the decision comes as part of an economic campaign against terrorism being waged by the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBTCF) at the Ministry of Defense, jointly with the Israel Security Agency, IDF Military Intelligence, Israel Police, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other divisions.

The funds were paid by the terrorist organization Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to terrorists who are serving sentences in Israeli prisons and their relatives. The ‘Pay to Slay’ scheme is “part of the systematic and organized operations of the terrorist organizations to strengthen terrorist activity and operations and to compensate prisoners and their families,” said the Israeli Defense Ministry.

The order authorized confiscation of ₪187,000 Shequels ($54,942) from Anas Rabhi Said Shaloudi, an Israeli-Arab resident of the Silwan neighborhood in Jerusalem. She had received the money from the Hamas terror leaders of Gaza in compensation for a vehicular attack committed by her son Abd el-Rahman Idris Mahmud Shaloudi at a light rail station in the capital in October of 2014. Three-month old Israeli infant Chaya Zissel Brown and Karen Jemima Mosquera, a 22-year old foreign citizen from Ecuador who had come to Israel to convert to Judaism, were killed in the attack. Seven other people were also injured.