| Washington Report Archives (2006-2010) - 2009 July |
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2009, pages 20, 31
Gaza on the Ground
Suspension of Benefits to Disabled Workers In Gaza Is Latest Weapon in Israeli Arsenal
By Mohammed Omer
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ISRAEL'S unilateral cease-fire, announced on Jan. 18, ending its 22-day military assault on Gaza did not mark the end of the Jewish state’s attempt to torment and annihilate the Muslims and Christians who live there. With no prior warning or explanation, Israel has ceased paying thousands of disabled Palestinian workers in the Gaza Strip their disability benefit payments from its National Insurance Institute (NII).
Many of the Gaza workers were employed in Israel at the time of their disability. All of the recipients—like any other Israeli worker—paid into the system through premiums and taxes. In most cases, the injuries for which they received compensation are work-related. In some cases, where the disability is terminal or life-altering, workers receive benefits until death. Some injured Gaza workers have been receiving benefits since 1978. For many, it is their only source of income.
Israel’s national insurance system is similar to those of other nations with workers compensation and/or state disability programs. Upon being injured, Israeli and Palestinian workers submit claims to the NII in accordance with Israel’s National Insurance Law. Each application is vetted by a medical committee, which determines the nature and extent of the disability and confirms that the injury is work-related. Upon approval, payments are then disbursed via the NII.
Younies Al Masri, a father of 10, is quite familiar with the process. In 1985 he was hit by a truck while working at an ice cream factory in Israel. Al Masri was lucky. His injuries resulted in injury to his bones, leaving him partially disabled. His brothers Jaber and Kamal were not so lucky, however: both died of the injuries they sustained in the same accident.
Since then, Al Masri’s disability payment of 4,000 shekels ($981) a month has been a sustaining source of income for his family. “We have the right to live with dignity after working loyally until the very end,” he said in a phone interview. “We are poor people with no interest in politics and should not have to suffer.”
When his January monthly payment failed to arrive, Al Masri said he tried to call the NII, but found no one to speak to.
According to Assaf Avid, director of the Nazareth-based Israeli organization Workers Advice Center (WAC): “The workers, some of whom have up to 75 percent disability, are in a state of uncertainty. These are people entirely dependent on even the smallest benefits. Without them, they may reach the point of starvation.”
Avid confirmed that the problem stems from “discrimination based on nationality.” Despite the fact that Palestinian workers legally employed in Israel pay the same amount of money to the NII as Israel’s Jewish workers, they do not receive the same benefits as their Jewish counterparts.
“Palestinians received two types of benefits from the insurance: work injury benefit [the equivalent of workers compensation insurance elsewhere], and company bankruptcy compensation. Now even these small benefits are being taken away from them. This is a violation of international law, national obligation and basic human rights,” Avid insisted.
Since Israel’s assault on Gaza Strip in December and January, Gaza’s banks have struggled with persistent cash shortages. All funds must enter Gaza through Israel, which continues to prevent or severely delay the transfer of funds. As a result, the banks frequently are unable to pay the salaries of Palestinian Authority employees or to distribute benefit checks.
The recipients of these disability benefits do not know why their benefits have ceased, and can only wait in limbo for their questions to be answered. Nor have any alternatives yet been devised.
An investigation conducted by the Israeli human rights group Adalah”“The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights discovered that “the transfer of insurance allowances has been halted because the Bank of Israel has suspended all its transactions with all banks within the Gaza Strip, including the Bank of Palestine.”
Adalah and Al Mezan subsequently delivered formal complaints to the directors of the Bank of Israel and the NII, as well as to the Israeli minister of finance, demanding the immediate transfer of benefit payments owed to disabled Palestinians. The sole reason offered for the non-delivery of benefits is that the recipients are located in Gaza. Al Mezan describes this exclusionary criterion as “a form of racial discrimination.”
As its officials point out, “Their Israeli counterparts continue to receive all their insurance allowances.”
For disabled Palestinians like Al Masri, the efforts of the legal and human rights groups, though commendable, fail to provide him with the means to put food on the table and feed his family.
“It’s been five months now and we haven’t received a single shekel to buy bread and tomatoes for my kids,” he laments. “And now my children and wife are starving. Our children need to go to school. We need food and we have nothing in the kitchen. Someone has to find a solution—even if we must travel to the checkpoints to pick up our checks.”
NII spokesman Haim Fitoussi admitted in a phone interview that the disabled workers in Gaza have the right under Israeli law to receive their benefit payments. “But there is a technical problem,” he added, “as two of Israel’s main banks are no longer in contact with the Gaza banks. Thus they cannot send the money there.’
Responding to Fitoussi’s explanation, WAC director Avid noted that using non-communication as an excuse in a nation noted for its technical communication abilities and skills serves to deflect rather than answer the question. “The technical pretext used by the NII is in reality a new attempt to add to the blockade of Gaza,” he charged.
Spokesman Fitoussi adamantly disagrees with Avid’s summation. “This is not a pretext,” he insisted. “It’s a real problem, and we will resolve it as soon as possible.”
But when Fitoussi was confronted about Al Masri not having received his injury benefits for five months and the harsh reality of near-starvation for him and his family, as well as the families of the other disabled workers, Fitoussi could only reply, “I don’t have an answer. I am sorry for them.”
Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports on the Gaza Strip, where he maintains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at <>.
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