WASHINGTON — Congress has moved one step closer to cutting off economic assistance that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The powerful Senate Appropriations Committee voted overwhelmingly today in favor of a foreign aid bill that withholds certain economic assistance unless the PA stops paying stipends to the families of Palestinians imprisoned for terrorism or killed while attacking Israelis. The inclusion of the provision, named after slain US Army veteran Taylor Force, greatly increases the odds that it will become law.

“Taylor Force was an American hero who was brutally murdered at the hands of terrorists,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said before today’s vote. “Yet instead of condemning this horrific attack — and so many others like it — the Palestinian Authority rewards terrorists. Today we are sending a strong message to the Palestinian Authority that this practice is wholly unacceptable and inconsistent with peace.”

Graham, the chairman of the committee’s panel that oversees foreign assistance, first introduced the Taylor Force Act last year. Companion legislation in the House from Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., has attracted 111 co-sponsors, all of them Republicans.