U.S. State Department settles lawsuit over Palestinian Authority funding
The settlement bars U.S. taxpayer funds to the Palestinian Authority for ten years if it continues its Martyrs Fund payments. Plaintiff Sarri Singer, injured in a 2003 Jerusalem bus bombing, said the outcome enforces the Taylor Force Act.
cnet.comThe U.S. State Department reached a settlement last month that bars American taxpayer funds to the Palestinian Authority for the next ten years if it continues payments through its Martyrs Fund. The agreement followed more than three years of litigation in a lawsuit that listed Sarri Singer as a plaintiff.
The fund, also called pay-for-slay, provides monthly stipends to terrorists and their families for attacks that killed Israelis and Americans. The Taylor Force Act, named after an American student killed in Jaffa in 2016, already restricts such transfers.
Attack and aftermath Singer was injured on June 11, 2003, when an 18-year-old Hamas operative detonated explosives on Jerusalem bus 14A near Davidka Square. Seventeen people died and more than 100 were wounded. She later founded Strength to Strength, a nonprofit that connects survivors of terrorism worldwide. The group provides long-term psychological and peer support.
Planned events Singer said she will travel to Jerusalem on Monday for discussions on the settlement and remaining accountability measures. The lawsuit outcome requires the State Department to follow the Taylor Force Act restrictions.
