Seniors protest against economic measures
Students join senior citizens in protest against Finance Ministry's economic plan
The protesters cried out against economic policies under the burden of which one of five senior citizens are below the poverty line.
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Gideon Ben-Israel, 91, chairman of the pensioners union and one of the organizers of the protest, said that the protest was aimed specifically at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid.
Photo: Motti Kimchi
"How can it be that people like (Nochi) Dankner and (Yitzhak) Tshuva pay the same price for milk and bread as I do?" Ben Israel asked, adding that the protesters have come to express their opposition to the "canceling of the property tax discount for senior citizens, the raising of drug prices, taxing burial plots, raising the VAT," and various policies that worsen the conditions of elderly citizens' eligibility for financial and nursing assistance.
Shimshon Blas, 86, said "They want to take my medical care privileges. I've had a stroke and a heart attack, but they don’t care."
Susie Frenkel added: "It's a disgrace. They're preying on the weak. Lapid and Netanyahu have yet to reach old age and don’t know what it's like to be miserable. Someone needs to tell them that people who've retired do not have large salaries. We've been working all our lives so as to not be a burden on our kids and now they will be forced to pay for my tombstone."
MK Itzik Shmuli attended the protest and said "The Treasury's plan is indeed austere. The cruelest measures in the budget are measures struck on the elderly and this is what we're fighting against. There are already 200,000 elderly below the poverty line and now tens of thousands of seniors are about to join them. What would minister Lapid suggest they do? Join the army? Join the job market?"
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