Can the Palestinian Authority (PA) be held civilly responsible for the October 7 massacre even if the plaintiffs cannot produce records showing that it directly paid the Hamas terrorists who planned and carried it out?
That question sits at the center of litigation brought by more than 8,000 plaintiffs now moving through the Jerusalem District Court, where they are seeking to hold the PA responsible for deaths, injuries, and other harm caused by the massacre and the war that followed.
Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, a former director of the IDF Military Prosecution in the West Bank whose recent study examines the PA and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) prisoner-payment system and its possible connection to October 7, does not expect the litigation to uncover a neat paper trail linking individual Hamas leaders to PA payments.
“I don’t think we’re going to see individual links to the PA,” Hirsch told The Jerusalem Post in a Monday interview. “I think it’s going to be very, very difficult to find that type of evidence.”
That evidentiary gap is central to the cases. Hirsch argued that the question is broader than whether a particular October 7 terrorist received a particular payment. The question is whether the PA’s long-standing system of paying, supporting, and employing prisoners and released prisoners can itself provide a sufficient connection to people who later returned to terrorism.
“What will most likely happen is that most of the discussion will be about the prima facie [initial] responsibility of the PA, if that can even be shown,” Hirsch said. “It will very much depend on whether the judge accepts this argument that the PA is responsible because of the payment of the salaries.”
The court has not decided that question.
In a July 1 decision, Jerusalem District Court Judge Eran Shilo set a common procedure for the thousands of lawsuits, separating the shared question of the PA’s potential responsibility from the individual circumstances and damages claimed by each plaintiff. The plaintiffs’ law firms were initially ordered to submit short written arguments, while the PA is due to file a single response by October 18.
Case remains in early stages of written arguments and information gathering
The case is still in that written-argument and information-gathering stage. Under Shilo’s timetable, plaintiffs’ attorneys were required to send written questions to the PA by August 11, with the PA due to provide answers and relevant documents by October 29. Expert reports are also expected to address whether the PA’s conduct can be connected to the massacre.
In a later August 3 decision, Shilo said a deadline for supplemental written arguments would be extended to August 16 if no objection was filed by August 6.
Shilo has left open the possibility of eventually deciding the common question of the PA’s responsibility before dealing with damages in thousands of individual cases, but said it was too early to know whether the evidence would allow that.
In 2024, the Knesset passed a law allowing victims of terrorism to seek exemplary damages from perpetrators and entities that reward terrorism.
The law provides for NIS 10 million for each person killed in a terrorist attack and NIS 5 million for a victim left permanently disabled, and was designed to make it easier for victims to establish a legal link to entities with an institutional policy of rewarding terrorism.
October 7, however, presents a more difficult question. Hamas led the massacre, meaning the plaintiffs suing the PA must first establish why the PA’s own conduct or policies make it legally responsible for the harm caused by the attack.
Hirsch’s study argues that the relevant PA/PLO system went considerably beyond monthly payments made while prisoners were in Israeli custody.
Drawing on Palestinian legislation, regulations, and financial records, Hirsch’s study describes a broader framework that included payments to prisoners, grants upon release, employment rights in PA institutions, and continued financial support in some cases where employment was unavailable.
A 2013 amendment and implementing regulations provided that released prisoners who had served more than 10 years would be employed and paid by PA institutions, with their rank and salary determined in part by time served. The regulations also required those employed under the arrangement to report for work only if called upon to do so.
For Hirsch, that employment component is crucial. He argued that the framework could provide released prisoners with an income while leaving them free to return to activity in terrorist organizations.
Much of his study focuses on Palestinians freed in the 2011 exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, in which Israel released 1,027 prisoners. They included Yahya Sinwar and several others who later rose to senior positions in Hamas’s political, military, security, and financial structures.
Hirsch’s study points to Sinwar, Rawhi Mushtaha, Tawfik Abu Naim, and Zaher Jabarin, among others, and argues that their prison terms entitled them to benefits under the PA framework.
It also cites Ali Qadi, a Hamas Nukhba commander who led one of the groups that invaded Israel on October 7, and argues that based on his known prison term, he would at least have qualified for the fixed payment available to released prisoners who had served between five and 10 years.
There is an important distinction between eligibility and proof of payment
But there is an important distinction between eligibility and proof of payment; Hirsch’s study does not point to individual records showing precisely what those Hamas figures received, whether each was formally placed on a PA payroll, or whether any payments continued until October 7.
Hirsch acknowledged that gap, but said his theory of responsibility does not depend entirely on proving a particular salary was transferred to a particular individual.
“I don’t have to show that they’re specifically receiving a salary, because there is this policy,” he said.
Whether the court accepts that argument remains to be seen.
Hirsch also pointed to the history of prisoners who returned to terrorism following their release. His study documents numerous Schalit-deal prisoners who resumed terrorist activity, some of whom later reached senior positions within Hamas.
For Hirsch, those cases matter because they raise a separate question of what the PA knew about the people benefiting from its policies.
“They were on notice, as it were,” he said. “These released terrorists that you’re employing, they’re going back to terrorism.”
His study does not argue that the payment system alone caused October 7. Rather, Hirsch contends that the financial and employment framework reduced the economic consequences of involvement in terrorism and materially assisted some experienced terrorists who later returned to Hamas activity.
The PA and PLO shifted responsibility for the prisoner-payment system between different bodies over the years, according to Hirsch’s study. He argued that those administrative changes did not, however, alter the underlying policy and attributes the framework jointly to the two organizations.
The latest major change came in February 2025, when PA President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree revoking provisions underpinning the previous prisoner-payment system, and transferring assistance to the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI).
The restructured system was presented as one in which assistance would be distributed according to financial need rather than according to imprisonment or sentence length.
PA says reforms ended sentence-based payments, with aid now determined solely by social need
The PA has said the reform ended sentence-based payments and that assistance under the new system is determined solely by social need.
Hirsch, however, argued that the overhaul changed the mechanism rather than ending the underlying policy. His study points to subsequent 2025 financial data as evidence that payments to prisoners and released prisoners continued after the reform.
The study notes that an independent audit concluded that the restructured mechanism complied with its stated mandate, while Hirsch argued that financial figures cited in the audit and other available data nevertheless show the continuation of substantial prisoner-related payments.
For the October 7 lawsuits, however, the central question remains what happened before the massacre and whether the plaintiffs can establish a sufficiently close legal connection between the PA’s conduct and the harm they suffered.
Hirsch does not argue that the PA was solely responsible for October 7 but, “the PA certainly does have at least joint responsibility with Hamas for the massacre,” in his opinion.
For now, the litigation is still several steps away from answering it. The plaintiffs must first put forward the evidence and legal theory connecting the PA to October 7, and the PA has yet to file its substantive response to the common liability claims.
Whether that broader system can establish a sufficient legal link to October 7 without individual payment records is now one of the questions the litigation will have to test.