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JULY 8, 2021 | The Jewish Home
Officials in both countries called the deal, which was inked earlier in the day, a “win-win.”
Knesset Ends Covid Unemployment Benefits
Israel’s Knesset approved a bill on Thursday ending unemployment payments to those who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. The bill, which followed the expiry of special regulations allowing the continuation of the payments, passed 35-0. Under the new plan, only those over the age of 45 will continue to receive unemployment, but payments will be lower and continue only until mid-October. Those over age 67 who lost their jobs due to the pandemic will also continue to receive a reduced payment, but only until the middle of September. Meir Spiegler, Director-General of the National Insurance Institute, which is in charge of the payments, told Channel 12 News that the plan “is balanced, gradual and provides a solution for quite a few populations that have fallen into crisis and have not yet found the ability to enter the labor market.” “This framework is not a perfect framework,” he admitted, but noted that “people knew that on June 30 the reliefs expire.”
Vaccines to S. Korea After Palestinians rejected vaccines offered to them from Israel, the Jewish State is sending them to South Korea. More than 700,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that are set to expire in a few weeks were flown to Seoul on Tuesday, as part of a deal between Israel and South Korea that will see the Asian nation send fresh vaccines in exchange later in the year.
Israel has been scrambling to use up or trade over 1 million doses of the vaccine that expire at the end of July. According to South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency, negotiations had originally been for 800,000 doses, but the amount was lowered due to a spurt of interest in vaccinations in Israel, where authorities have begun pushing for teens aged 12 to 15 to be inoculated. Jung Eun-kyeong, Korea’s top infectious disease expert, said the Seoul government will continue to pursue swap deals with other countries. “We are expecting to have a sufficient number of vaccines during the fourth quarter while we proceed with our vaccination campaign,” said Jung, director of the agency. The deal comes weeks after the Palestinian Authority backed out of a similar agreement, saying the vaccine doses were too close to their expiration date, despite Israel using the same batches to vaccinate its teens. “This exchange arrangement was made based on the thoughts shared by all countries, including South Korea and Israel, that even a single drop of a vaccine should not go down the drain,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Choi Young-sam said. South Korea has so far administered first doses to just 30% of its population of 51 million. Israel has fully vaccinated nearly 5.3 million people of its population of 9.3 million.
Knesset Votes Down Citizenship Law
Israel’s Knesset on Tuesday morning struck down a bill to prevent the unification of Palestinian
