One Year after Israel Illegally Froze Disability Payments to Workers in Gaza, the AG Responds to Adalah's Petition before the Israeli Supreme Court: We will soon reach a solution

Adalah: Attorney General's response represents an unacceptable delay to individuals and families living in extreme poverty in Gaza

On 21 January 2010, the Attorney General (AG) submitted his response to a Supreme Court petition filed by Adalah together with the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza in August 2009, against the freeze of “National Insurance” disability payments to around 700 workers in Gaza Strip in January 2009. The halt of the payments followed a decision made by the Bank of Israel to stop all business with all banks in Gaza. According to the AG, negotiations are ongoing between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, most of the differences between the parties have been closed, and a solution is anticipated in the near future.

In a related development, on 24 January 2010, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement by the spokesperson of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (COGAT) claiming that a system had been established for the transfer of the disability payments to the beneficiaries through the Palestinian Authority “as a humanitarian gesture.”

In Adalah’s view, the AG's response is insufficient, since the disability payments are the sole source of income for disabled Palestinians and their families. These workers were injured during the course of their work in Israel and they paid all national insurance fees and taxes prior to their injuries. They have already survived without an income for an entire year. Further, contrary to the statement of COGAT, it is the right of the beneficiaries to receive the payments. These funds are not grants from the Israeli government but the property of the recipients. COGAT's portrayal of the transfer of these payments as a act of good will is to deliberately manipulate Israeli and international public opinion.

The petition was filed by Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zahar in August 2009 on behalf of six individuals who have stopped receiving their disability payments, together with Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations Al Mezan, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Sawt el-Amel (The Laborer’s Voice), and Kav LaOved (Worker’s Hotline).

BACKGROUND

The petition emphasized that following their injuries, the workers submitted requests to the National Insurance Institute (NII) for the receipt of disability payments. Under the National Insurance Act of 1995, the file of each worker was transferred to an internal medical committee, which certified his disability and entitlement to the allowance. NII payments have been made by Israel to these workers for many years. In cases in which the NII confirms the eligibility of a person to receive disability allowances, it becomes obliged under law to transfer the payments on a monthly basis; failure to do so constitutes a breach of the law.

The petitioners argued that in previous decisions, the Israeli Supreme Court has affirmed that National Insurance payments are the property of the beneficiaries and therefore any detriment to them affects the constitutional right to property ownership and contradicts the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom – 1992. Further, the transfer of disability payments to Israeli beneficiaries living in Israel and not to Palestinians, merely because they live in the Gaza Strip, constitutes discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and nationality. It also contradicts the right of Palestinian workers to equal treatment before the law. Moreover, depriving individuals of disability payments when they constitute their sole source of income prevents them from purchasing the medicine they need for their injuries and disabilities. Thus the non-transfer of the payments is also a violation of their right to health.

Attorney Mirvat al-Nakhal from Al Mezan stated that the affected workers demonstrate that they and their families were living in extreme poverty. The discontinuation of the payments have an adverse effect on their lives and violate their human rights, particularly since economic and humanitarian conditions in Gaza are in a continual state of decline as a result of the Israeli blockade and closure.

One of the petitioners is 58-year-old Mr. Sharif Qarmout, who is married and has three children. In 1979, while working in construction in the area of Rishon Letzion, he fell six storeys from a building. He sustained serious injuries to his back and was completely paralyzed. After being injured, Mr. Qarmout approached a special committee within the NII. After undergoing numerous tests he was diagnosed as 100% disabled and awarded disability payments. Mr. Qarmout, who was insured with the Clalit Health Services Fund, is also entitled to a wheel chair every three years, along with several types of medicine. However, the health fund stopped providing these benefits at the beginning of 2009. Since then, Mr. Qarmout has been unable to support himself and his family, since the payments were their only source of income. He has further been unable to purchase the medicines he needs, which cost over 1,000 shekels per month.

Case citation: HCJ 6820/09, Fadl Abu al-Qumsan et al. v. The Bank of Israel, et al. (case pending)