The Israeli Cabinet agreed unanimously Sunday that the government will compensate homeowners and farmers for property damage caused by the record snowfalls and flooding last week.
Finance Minister Yitzhak Moda’i promised that claims would be processed and payments made as quickly as possible with minimum bureaucratic delay.
Television newsreel coverage over the weekend gave viewers a glimpse of the severe damage caused by the winter storm that swept over Israel last Monday and Tuesday. Meteorologists said it was the worst recorded in this century.
Farmers, especially in northern Israel, suffered huge losses of livestock and crops ruined by blizzard conditions and frigid temperatures.
The Haifa Bay area was especially hard hit when the Kishon River overflowed its banks, inundating large agricultural, industrial and residential regions.
Farm damage claims were supported by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. He has been acting agriculture minister since that minister, Rafael Eitan, resigned in January and pulled his Tsomet faction out of the government coalition.
Meanwhile, the bodies of two Bedouin teenagers missing since Feb. 24 were found Sunday in a wadi near their homes in the seaside village of Jisr e-Zerka.
The bodies of the youths, who were cousins, were wedged under a bridge. They are believed to have been drowned in a flash flood while herding sheep when a severe winter storm struck Israel last Monday.
They became the objects of a widespread search after their flock wandered home unattended.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
