PA funds seized as restitution for Israel’s moles
Palestinians who collaborated with Israel before being detained, tortured by PA sue to receive restitution for damages; after receiving verdict in their favor, plaintiffs contact Execution Office to seize PA funds held by finance minister in order to receive money.
Israel's Execution Office presented the Ministry of Finance with a foreclosure order on NIS 500,000 in Palestinian Authority (PA) funds, to be received as court-mandated reparations for collaborators with Israel who were caught and tortured by the PA's security forces.
The Execution Office is tasked with ensuring a debtor who received a favorable judgment receives their due recompense, and to that end is entitled to seize property or funds owned by the defendant.
The affair began several months ago, when the Jerusalem District Court ordered the PA to pay half a million shekels in restitution to 50 collaborators with Israel who were captured and tortured during their interrogation.
The plaintiffs, who never received the money they were owed, decided to contact Israel's Execution Office to stop Israel's regular transfer of funds to the PA. Execution consented to the request made by attorney Aryeh Arbos, who represents some of the plaintiffs, and provided the foreclosure order, a move considered highly irregular.
The damages derived from a verdict the Jerusalem District Court decided on four months ago, in which the PA was said to be responsible for the illegal detention, torture and even murder of collaborators with Israel starting in the 90s.
The verdict went on to describe the brutal methods of torture exacted upon the collaborators by the PA, adding that in some cases the PA even went so far as to kidnap collaborators from Israel after they had escaped and return them to areas under its control for further torture.
In many of the cases, the torture and detentions did not cease until IDF forces intervened to free the collaborators during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
After banding together, the aggrieved collaborators petitioned the High Court of Justice, and were eventually award half a million shekels in restitution.
"We're pleased with the foreclosure order for NIS 500,000 in Palestinian Authority funds held by Israel," said the law office of Rom-Arbos-Kedem-Tzur, representing the claimants.
"It's the government's sworn duty to honor a court of law's verdicts and, moreover, the State of Israel's deep commitment to assist those who have paid with their well-being—and sometimes with their lives—in order to save its sons and daughters from terrorism, death and bereavement," the law office's statement concluded.
