Over 1.7 million Israelis live below poverty: Report
Over 1.7 million Israelis, or 22 percent of the population, lived below the poverty line last year, a new report shows.
The annual report, published by Israel’s National Insurance Institute on Wednesday, found that some 1,709,300 residents of the occupied Palestinian territories, including 776,500 children, lived in poverty in 2014, showing a rising trend in comparison with the previous year.
According to the report, an individual with a monthly income of less than NIS (new Israeli shekel) 3,077, or USD 796, is considered poor, as is any couple making less than NIS 4,923 (USD 1,274) a month.
The report’s author, Daniel Gottlieb, said the increase in poverty was most likely due to the regime’s reduction of child allotments in 2013.
“There was a continued rise in housing prices and rent and in the severity and depth of poverty, partly due to the reduction in child allowances, which influenced for the first time in 2014,” Gottlieb wrote in the report.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were quick to react to the report, sharply criticizing Tel Aviv for its economic policies.
“The figures in the report are shocking as usual but not surprising. The poor in Israel are not of enough interest” to the regime, said president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein.
“The suffering of hundreds of thousands of elderly, children, and families that have collapsed under the burden [of poverty]" is a shame and “a real threat” to the social situation, Eckstein added.
Israel has the second-highest poverty rate within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Only Mexico has a worse rate than Israel on the list.
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