UK aid must not help martyr payouts, David Cameron told
DAVID Cameron faces calls to conduct a full audit of British aid to Palestine amid fears it helps fund payouts to the wives of terrorist "martyrs".
Every year the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, spends millions on a shocking practice known as "pay for slay".
Officially known as the “Martyrs Fund”, it pays out monthly stipends to terrorists and the families of dead terrorists who commit politically motivated violence against Israel.
Payouts range from a few hundred pounds a month to £2,500 – significantly higher than average local salaries.
While the Foreign Office insists that no UK aid goes to the fund, campaigners say Western aid spent on essentials only frees up cash for the practice.
"New Foreign Secretary David Cameron must carry out a full audit of UK aid,” independent peer Ian Austin writes in the Sun on Sunday.
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“Ministers claim they no longer directly fund the Palestinian Authority but he needs to make sure not a single penny end us teaching kids extremism or paying terrorists and their families under the disgusting ‘pay to slay’ scheme.”
The UK has given the Occupied Palestinian territories an extra £60 million since the war broke out – on top of £27 million already committed for this year.
Most UK aid to Palestine is channelled through a dedicated agency United Nations called UNRWA and goes on health and education.
But British-Israeli Rabbi Leo Dee, whose wife and two daughters were murdered by Hamas in the West Bank in April, warns that the UK is "technically funding its enemies".
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He told the Sun on Sunday: "The terrorists who killed my wife and daughters, their families will receive about a million dollars per family over the next 40 years in payment.
"What you have is the biggest terrorist incentive scheme that's ever been created in the world and it's funded by the West.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “No UK aid is used for payments to Palestinian prisoners, or their families or the Martyrs Fund.”
Sources insisted UK aid undergoes rigorous oversight to minimise the risks of diversion.