Many low-income families in Israel have been adversely affected by the ongoing COVID pandemic and the consequent economic crisis that followed, says an NGO that focuses on poverty and food insecurity in Israel.
In their poverty report, LaTet - an NGO which provides monthly assistance to 60,000 families and 1,000 Holocaust survivors - said that 80% of Israelis who receive aid from the organization, had their employment status affected by COVID in 2021, amounting to either loss of hours, loss of shifts, or being laid off.
“It is the weakest within Israeli societies that [COVID] is hitting the most,” said Gilles Darmon, the president and founder of LaTet.
The NGO further estimated that over 220,000 households fell into economic hardship this past year due to the virus.
“It is important for us to show the gap in 2021 between the start-up nation and the soup kitchen nation. There are two different realities in Israel," Darmon.
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An elderly woman looking for food among discarded trash, during the COVID pandemic
(Photo: Nadav Abas)
The organization predicted that in 2021, nearly two-thirds of poorer families had to forego medical care or prescription medicine when they were sick because they could not afford such services.
“The Israeli middle class is on its way to disappearing. This is more than one-quarter of the entire Israeli society that is in danger of falling into poverty," said Darmon, who added that some 2.5 million Israelis currently live in poverty, including one million children.
Story republished with permission from i24NEWS