The US State Department on Sunday accused the Palestinian Authority of trying to “dupe” the international community into believing it ended a welfare system that incentivized attacks on Israelis, dismissing an external audit that suggested otherwise.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree in February 2025 ending the previous program, which conditioned payments to Palestinian security prisoners on the length of their sentence, and established a new system that tied all welfare stipends to recipients’ financial situation.

Initial skepticism in Washington over the announcement intensified when it was discovered the following November that a subsequent round of payments was made under the previous mechanism. Abbas fired his finance minister over the transgression, but Ramallah has failed to earn the Trump administration’s trust on the issue.

In an attempt to demonstrate its seriousness, the PA commissioned the prominent global consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal to conduct an audit of its new welfare system being run out of the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI or “Tamkeen” in Arabic).

Earlier this month, the PA announced that the audit had confirmed that the reform of its welfare program is being properly implemented.

The US responded by calling on the PA to publicly release the audit. Last week, Ramallah released A&M’s summary of the audit, which confirmed Ramallah’s own description of the results.

The audit identified the batch of illicit payments under the previous system that was made in November 2025, but noted that the PA had informed A&M that those were for previously accrued obligations before the February 2025 reform was announced. The audit said additional documentation was still needed to independently verify that the old payment mechanisms have been permanently shut down.

Overall, though, the auditors concluded that the reform has largely succeeded in separating the new cash assistance program from the previous prisoner payment system, while recommending stronger documentation, automation and financial controls to ensure the separation remains permanent.

Asked for comment on the matter, a State Department spokesperson again offered a dismissive response.

“The review commissioned by the PA examined only the new social payments institution (“Tamkeen”) without looking into the various clandestine........

© The Times of Israel