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Israel demands PA stop paying off prisoners' families

Israel's prime minister has called for an end to payments to Palestinians held in Israeli prisoners and their families, but so far the Palestinian Authority has refused to comply.
Protesters wave flags bearing a portrait of prominent jailed Palestinian Marwan Barghouti during a rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah to show their support to Palestinians detained in Israeli jails after hundred of them launched a hunger strike on April 17, 2017.
More than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails launched a hunger strike following a call from Barghouti, a Palestinian Authority official said. / AFP PHOTO / ABBAS MOMANI        (Photo credit should read ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)
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RAMALLAH, West Bank — In reaction to the open-ended and ongoing hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, started on April 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Palestinian Authority on April 22 to to prove its commitment to the peace process by halting the financial allocations to Palestinian prisoners and their families.

Netanyahu's demands come in line with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman's March 16 declaration that the Palestine Liberation Organization's Palestinian National Fund (PNF) is a “terrorist organization” over its “support for elements responsible for terrorist acts against Israel.” Liberman also condemned the disbursement of funds to Palestinian prisoners who killed Israelis. On March 16, the PA dismissed the declaration as a breach of the Oslo Accord signed between the PLO and Israel Sept. 13, 1993.

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