The Israel National Insurance Institute has announced that, starting in July, it will begin paying old-age allowances to Arab and other minority residents in East Jerusalem. Under the national insurance law. insured persons become entitled to such allowances after completing a minimum of five years of consecutive payments to the institute.
Many elderly East Jerusalem residents are now beginning to qualify since they were added to the list of the institute’s insured beneficiaries immediately after the 1967 Six-Day War. Institute officials added that most recipients of such allowances will also receive benefits paid in addition to the old-age allowances to all elderly persons who have no sources of income of any kind.
The monthly amounts payable to such aged persons will be 160 pounds and 250 pounds, respectively for single persons and for couples. Officials said widows and divorcees in East Jerusalem have been receiving institute allowances for some time from the institute, since no qualifying period is required for such payments.
The officials also reported that East Jerusalem residents have been receiving for some time large family allowances and birth grants. Residents who are victims of work accidents and of “hostile actions” receive the maximum benefits provided by the institute for such cases. Including rehabilitation services. The officials noted that under the Hashemite regime which controlled Old Jerusalem from the 1948 war to the Six-Day War, there was no comprehensive social insurance program for residents of Old Jerusalem.
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