The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said Saturday that an Israeli legal organization operating under the cover of government bodies provides legal and social protection to occupiers who kill Palestinians and commit acts of violence in the occupied West Bank, while Palestinians face pressure and sanctions over payments made to prisoners held in Israeli jails, Anadolu reports.
The statement was made in a weekly report by the PLO’s National Office for Land Defense, which monitors violations in the West Bank. The report was titled “Symbols of hatred in settlements incite more crimes.”
The report said the Israeli far-right legal organization Honenu provides legal support, litigation and free defense to occupiers and extremist Jews accused of committing violent crimes and terrorist acts against Palestinians in the West Bank.
It said the support is intended to thwart attempts to hold occupiers accountable, secure their swift release and ensure the continuation of their attacks in the West Bank.
Double standards
The report said the situation demonstrates “double standards” by countries, particularly in the EU and the US, which pressure the Palestinian side over payments to Palestinian prisoners and families of those killed and wounded, while turning a blind eye to the Israeli network.
“Honenu follows an organized policy of providing direct financial support, salaries and bonuses to the families of extremist settlers imprisoned for committing terrorist crimes or acts of violence against Palestinians,” the report said.
The organization seeks to ensure the families’ financial stability during the settlers’ imprisonment, help them withstand interrogations without confessing to crimes and encourage others to carry out similar attacks, it added.
During the first half of 2026, Israeli occupiers carried out 3,488 attacks in the West Bank, killing 17 Palestinians, completely or partially displacing 26 Bedouin and herding communities and establishing 42 new illegal settlement outposts, most of them pastoral outposts, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a government body.
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Extensive financial support
According to the report, Honenu operates “under the sight and hearing of the Israeli government” and provides “fixed monthly salaries” to the wives and families of settlers detained or convicted of killing Palestinians or setting fire to Palestinian homes, covering living expenses throughout their prison sentences.
The report said the organization also “regularly deposits money into the personal accounts of settlers inside prisons,” enabling them to purchase their daily necessities.
It said Honenu also provides bonuses and additional assistance to families of settlers with children, including covering school expenses, religious occasions and family celebrations to compensate for the absence of the family’s breadwinner.
The assistance also covers transportation costs for family members and wives traveling from illegal settlements to Israeli prisons to visit their relatives, according to the report.
The report further said the organization launches “special online fundraising campaigns to collect millions of shekels for the families of settlers who have committed major crimes against Palestinians,” with the money provided as “resilience grants” to the families.
It said the funds come primarily from tax-exempt donations provided by wealthy individuals and right-wing organizations in the US and Israel, alongside facilitation and indirect cover from extremist Israeli government bodies.
The report identified Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as one of the prominent figures linked to the organization.
Targeting Palestinian prisoner payments
The report comes as Palestinian prisoners face harsh prison conditions, including torture and starvation, which human rights reports say have resulted in the deaths of many prisoners, alongside Israeli measures targeting financial payments made to them and their families.
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In February 2025, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree abolishing laws and regulations related to payments to families of Palestinians killed by Israel and prisoners held in Israeli jails, and transferred the program to a government institution.
The decree stipulated the transfer of the “cash assistance program, its database, and its local and international financial allocations” from the Ministry of Social Development to the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution.
Human rights and political organizations said at the time that the decree was issued under US and Israeli pressure to end payments to Palestinian prisoners.
The Institute for Palestine Studies said at the time that the Palestinian Authority faced a “complex equation” involving Israeli and US pressure to end prisoner payments, an internal financial crisis and the need to regain international support.
The authority chose an administrative restructuring approach by transferring the program to the Economic Empowerment Institution, which was established in 2019 by presidential decree to promote development and support vulnerable groups through financing for small businesses, it added.
The institute said that since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, prisoner salaries had been associated with a “symbolic right,” as they represented societal recognition of the prisoners’ sacrifices.
Since 2019, Israel has deducted from Palestinian clearance revenues amounts equivalent to the payments made by the Palestinian Authority to families of Palestinians killed by Israel and prisoners.
In 2023, Israel also began making deductions equivalent to payments made by the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip, contributing to the authority’s financial crisis.
Clearance revenues are taxes and customs duties imposed on goods imported into the Palestinian side, whether from Israel or through Israeli border crossings, including land, sea and air crossings.
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