Israel Eichler heard that UNRWA is completely immune from lawsuits and was shocked: This is absurd

March 18, 2024   

The Labor and Welfare Committee, headed by MK Israel Eichler, has begun preparing for the second and third readings of a bill designed to allow victims of hostilities to sue and receive compensation for damages from those responsible for terrorist acts while also receiving compensation from the state. Currently, according to the Compensation for Victims of Hostilities Law, it is not possible to receive compensation for damages both from the law and from another law. As a result, victims of hostilities are forced to return to the National Insurance Institute the full compensation they received from it, in order to claim compensation for damages from those found to be responsible for the terrorist act, such as the Palestinian Authority. According to the bills, it will be possible to receive compensation from the tortfeasor in the amount of 25% of the damage awarded to the victim, while also receiving compensation from the state. A representative of the Ministry of Justice explained: "The law has never prevented the right to sue, but rather the right to receive compensation from the National Insurance Institute and compensation together. Damages from the harm. There are already dozens of lawsuits and hundreds of victims from previous waves of attacks. On October 7, a huge number of deaths and injuries were added to this, so there will be a very large potential for lawsuits to be filed for the proposed amendment, which will be spread over several years. The defendant in the tort claim can be anyone involved in carrying out, financing, or assisting the terrorist act, and therefore the potential of the defendants is great and not necessarily just the Palestinian Authority, so it is difficult to know how and in what manner it will be realized." To the committee's question whether it would be possible to sue UNRWA as responsible for the October 7th incident, the representative replied: "As of today, UNRWA people have immunity that can be removed, but UNRWA as an institution, like all UN institutions, is completely immune from lawsuits." In response to these remarks, the committee's chairman, MK Eichler, said: "When the UN was established, the goal was to protect people, and in the end, it itself is immune from lawsuits for crimes it commits. Absurd." MK Simcha Rothman said: "There are two fundamental and important concepts here. The first says - whoever is responsible for terrorist attacks and harms people on the streets of cities or the events of October 7 or before must compensate the victim. "The legal process is part of the rehabilitation process of a person who has been harmed to return to the person the control that was suddenly taken from him. The second is that terrorism does not grow in a vacuum. It has a financial, organizational, educational infrastructure and all of these things work on money, it is the engine for terrorism. Therefore, the goal is to ensure that through these lawsuits we will not only make them pay for what they have done but also prevent future terrorist attacks.".