New immigrants are being left behind during the conflict with Iran, with rocket-alert instructions and compensation guidelines still appearing only in Hebrew, the aliyah Knesset committee said on Monday.
Aliyah, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee chair Labor MK Gilad Kariv said the share of olim living in areas hit by recent Iranian missile barrages “is very high,” yet key safety and compensation information “has not been linguistically accessible to all immigrant communities,” the Knesset Spokesperson’s Office reported him as saying.
Kariv pledged to hold follow-up hearings “until every immigrant in Israel receives optimal treatment.”
Maj. (res.) Tamar Lavie, head of the Home Front Command’s public-information branch, told the panel that preliminary rocket warnings should be available in multiple languages “within the next two days.” Currently, cellphone alerts and shelter instructions are issued only in Hebrew, leaving many reliant on community volunteers to translate live updates.
Haya Levy of the Israel Tax Authority conceded that the online form for filing war-related property-damage claims “exists only in Hebrew” and said translation work was underway.
“Our staff are in the field helping new immigrants complete the forms,” she said. “Once a tenant secures a new lease, we examine it case by case and provide compensation.”
Kariv called the situation “unacceptable,” adding that he would press ministries “to translate the information into all required languages” and to extend the government-funded hotel stays for evacuees whose homes were damaged. The committee also urged the Finance Ministry to lengthen the deadline for filing compensation claims.
Jewish Agency presses ahead with Aliyah
Shay Felber, deputy director-general for Aliyah and Absorption at the Jewish Agency, reported “zero cancellations” among would-be immigrants despite the war. The agency hopes to bring about 2,500 olim by mid-July on dedicated flights and on planes chartered to rescue stranded Israelis abroad. All absorption centers under its control, Felber said, “have standard protected spaces.”
The Aliyah and Integration Ministry said it had launched “Operation Otef Olim,” making more than 14,000 outbound calls to immigrants since the first missiles fell. A multilingual mental-health hotline is operating with the NGO ERAN, while the ministry’s general call center can be reached at *2994, in Hebrew, Arabic, English, Russian, Amharic, Spanish, and French.
Committee members and NGO representatives urged municipalities to add foreign-language options to local hotlines and to clarify whether immigrant tenants, not only landlords, qualify for reparations when apartments are hit.
“The Iranian missiles do not distinguish between Sabras and new immigrants,” Yisrael Beytenu MK Evgeny Sova said. “In moments like these, patience and mutual responsibility are essential for us all.”