Rally for public housing in Jerusalem, November 2011 (Photo: Activestills)

Hadash MKs demands public housing in national housing law

The Internal Affairs and Environment Committee will not pass Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s (Yesh Atid) National Housing law unless he adds a public housing component, committee Hadash MKs said on Monday. Hadash MKs hammered Lapid for not focusing enough on affordable and public housing in the law. “Affordable housing isn’t putting a family in a…

Ramez Jeraisy during a Hadash meeting in Nazareth with Hadash Chairman, MK Mohammad Barakeh and Hadash Secretary, Ayman Odeh (Photo: Al Ittihad)

Nazareth to get new mayoral elections on March

High Court President Asher Grunis and Judges Yitzhak Amit and Dafna Barak-Erez decided Tuesday that a revote will be held in the elections for the mayor of Nazareth in the Galilee, the most important Arab city in Israel. The High Court of Justice ordered a new mayoral election for Nazareth after the results of the…

Israeli activists and African asylum seekers jailed in Holot detention center protest outside Saharonim prison in solidarity with African asylum seekers on hunger strike, January 18, 2014. About 50 African asylum seekers have been on hunger strike for two weeks (Photo: Activestills)

Human rights organizations call on the government to recognize the rights of asylum seekers

Human rights organizations: Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Hotline for Refugees and Migrants and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, call on the Israeli government to recognise and protect the needs and rights of asylum seekers in its territory. Israel is home to about 53,000 African asylum seekers. According to the Ministry of Interior (MOI), 49,000 of…

Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank outside the Nil'in checkpoint, October 2013 (Photo: Activestills)

Report: Failures in treatment of claims presented by migrant, asylum seeker and Palestinian workers to the National Insurance Institute

Kav LaOved (NGO) published a new report in English titled “National Insurance Institute (NII) and Non-Israeli Workers: Failures in treatment of claims presented by migrants, asylum seekers and Palestinian workers.” This report deals with the structure, management, and enforcement of the rights that the NII is legally required to provide to these three categories of…

Asylum seekers and refugees strike, January 2014 (Photo: Activestills)

Asylum seekers are forced to forgo the right to strike

Asylum seekers returning to work after the strike last January were required to sign contracts undermining their employment conditions. According to Noa Kaufman, Coordinator for Refugee and Asylum Seeker Workers in Kav La’Oved, soon after the asylum seeker workers employed in restaurants, hotels, and maintenance went out on strike, many of their employers came out…