Israel passes law to strip citizenship from claimants of pay-for-slay terror stipends

The Israeli parliament (Knesset) on Wednesday passed a law to strip the citizenship from claimants of the Palestinian Authority's (PA) "pay-for-slay" terror stipends.

Ramallah has a longstanding — and widely condemned — policy of compensating terrorists and their families. It extends to Palestinians jailed by Israel for acts of or links to terrorism, as well as those wounded or killed while committing violent terror attacks. Even those Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship were eligible for the compensation, until now. 

Israel has sought to clamp down on the policy by deducting money from tax revenues it collects on behalf of the West Bank's PA. Under a 2018 law, Israel calculates each year how much it believes the PA paid in stipends to terrorists and deducts that amount from the tax revenues. 

"Our answer to terrorism is to hit it hard," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on Twitter following the parliamentary vote, tagging the bill's author Ofir Katz, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud party.

The final of the bill's three readings in parliament saw it pass 94-10, in a show of cooperation between the government and the opposition.

Parliamentarians approved "the revocation of citizenship or residency of a terrorist operative who receives compensation (from the PA) for committing an act of terrorism," according to an official statement.