Summary
During the reporting period (June 2025 - May 2026), the PA failed to uphold prior commitments to nonviolence and the two-state solution. It took actions in international organizations contradicting prior commitments per United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The PA continued actions to internationalize its conflict with Israel. Such actions included encouraging countries to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state; supporting lawfare through the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice; supporting incitement and glorification of violence, especially in textbooks; and making payments and benefits to Palestinian terrorists and their families, despite public announcements of changes to PA policy on this question. PA security forces (PASF) took steps to counter violence and terrorism, often working with Israeli security forces to prevent and counter terrorism in the West Bank.
Palestinian Leaders and Media Fail to Fulfill Their Committments
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has at times voiced a commitment to nonviolence and a two-state solution. He has also echoed previous PLO commitments. After a year and a half of failing to condemn Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, Abbas first criticized the attack in a June 8, 2025, letter to the President. On November 25, 2025, Abbas stated in remarks delivered on his behalf at the UN during the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” that “the Palestinian State [continued its] full commitment to implementing all the reforms it has pledged to undertake in order to strengthen a free, independent, and democratic Palestinian state, committed to a culture of peace and dialogue.” Abbas made these comments indirectly after the Department of State revoked his visa. The United States took this action because the PA did not honor its peace commitments and unilaterally sought recognition of a Palestinian state.
On December 12, 2025, Abbas attended the annual political conference of Italy's Brothers of Italy party in Rome, during which he urged Italy to formally recognize a Palestinian state. Abbas said, “Our Palestinian people aspire to live in their homeland in freedom and dignity, in a modern state that believes in democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, pluralism, equality, and the rejection of violence.” Despite the PA’s prior claims, there has been no progress fulfilling any of the actual reforms Abbas expressed in his remarks.
Some elements of the PA and the Fatah party also made individual statements downplaying the violence of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. For example, in an October 7, 2025, interview with Sky News Arabia, Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub described the October 7, 2023, attack as a response to longstanding Israeli actions. He said he could not condemn such armed struggle, framing it as part of Fatah’s historical approach. He added that although armed resistance had been a strategic choice, current conditions favored political and diplomatic means to achieve statehood. In a July 5, 2025, interview, Abbas’s advisor Mahmoud al-Habbash said that although the October 7, 2023, attack was initially “praised” and stirred strong emotions, it should be judged by its outcomes rather than sentiment. He said the attack had been a “disaster” for the Palestinian people and their cause in terms of its political and practical consequences.
On March 27, 2026, al-Habbash said, “We oppose the Israeli and American aggression against any Islamic state. We do not and cannot support the American aggression against Iran. However, we also do not support and strongly and clearly oppose any aggression or attack by Iran against Arab and Islamic states. The conflict should be solely against the occupation and external and foreign aggression. All Arab and Islamic efforts must be united against this aggression.”
On January 26, 2026, the official PA radio station aired an interview with Head of the PLO Department of Jerusalem Affairs Adnan Al-Husseini. Al-Husseini expressed support for the United Nations (UN) Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a political organization designed to harm Israel. He said, “UNRWA is an institution of the UN, but for the Palestinians, it has great significance. Its significance is the right of return. The right of return is an expression that, from the perspective of the occupation, is unacceptable…in Palestine the matter is not over, because people have rights, and they are waiting for the day when they will achieve their rights. UNRWA has been confirming this and strengthening it for decades.”
On November 25, 2025, official PA television aired an interview with Head of the PA Directorate of Education in North Hebron Bassem Jaber. Jaber defended PA educational curriculum that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, stating “They confiscated…maps of Palestine. This is the map of Palestine, and they asked why we didn't write the word Israel on it? We are in the state of Palestine, and this is the map of Palestine, and we educate our children according to the Palestinian curriculum.”
On November 11, 2025, official PA television aired an interview in which PLO Executive Committee Member Azzam Al-Ahmad expressed support for terrorism against Israel. He said, “The Palestinian cause is a political cause and not a military one. However, politics is not disconnected from military activity and is particularly not disconnected from the struggle activity, for the benefit of, in other words, an armed struggle of a people fighting to regain its land and its rights.”
In February 2025, Abbas announced the PA would no longer provide hundreds of millions of dollars in payments and benefits to Palestinian terrorists and their families. Despite this announcement, the PA continued payments and benefits to Palestinian terrorists and their families. Israel reported roughly $160 million, or half a billion shekels, in compensation in 2025, including $125 million (395 million shekels) to Palestinian terrorists and $29 million (92 million shekels) to the families of Palestinian terrorists. During the reporting period, the PA made payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families through multiple mechanisms, including the new social welfare agency called the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment. Several open source reports demonstrate the PA continued the practice of “pay for slay,” despite claims and promises to the contrary. In February 2026, a full year after Abbas claimed to revoke the decrees, PA Minister of Finance Estephan Salameh said publicly that the PA remained committed to continuing compensation to the Palestinian terrorists and their families. He admitted compensation had not stopped, saying, “With effort and great, almost impossible difficulty, we continue to provide this rate [60 percent] of [PA public employee] salaries. We have not abandoned any Palestinian resident, whether they are prisoners or families of martyrs and wounded…We are not reducing or forgoing any salary.” Salameh said this even after the previous minister of finance had been fired in November 2025 for providing compensation to terrorists and their families.
The PA Broadcasting Corporation’s code of conduct prohibits programming encouraging “violence against any person or institution on the basis of race, religion, political beliefs, or sex.” The PA has inconsistently enforced this prohibition. During the reporting period, official media channels broadcast or published content praising or celebrating acts of violence. The PA occasionally deleted such content.
There were insufficient changes to curriculum in PA-run or regulated schools during the reporting period. Curriculum continued to support antisemitism, incited violence, refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and glorified terrorism.
PA Cooperates - At Times - with Israel on Security
The PA has worked with Israel to counter Iran and its proxies in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, through PASF counterterrorism operations. During the reporting period, PA officials maintained open security dialogues with Israeli counterparts and actively shared information on terrorist threats. Following the historic October 13, 2025, signing in Egypt of the Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity in Gaza, PASF intensified operations to disrupt Hamas’s political and terrorist activities in the West Bank. The PA maintained non-escalation policies, requiring PASF to return to barracks while Israeli security forces operated in their area. When PASF received reports of Israeli extemist civilian violence, it engaged Israeli security forces and asked them to respond. PASF can only operate in Areas A and B. At times, they did not carry out counterterrorism operations with the immediacy Israeli security forces believed the threat required. Such cases required Israel to engage in military operations in Areas A and B.
Source: “Steps Taken by the Palestinian Authority to Counter Incitement of Violence against Israelis and to Promote Peace and Coexistence with Israel,” U.S. Congress, (May 17, 2026).