While Israel's acts of war in July and August 2006 caused immense suffering in Lebanon and Gaza, citizens of Israel were also victimised by the violence. Within five weeks of fighting, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel, and according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, 43 civilians died, 18 of whom Arab citizens. By July 27, 2006, government and business and labour representatives had signed a compensation agreement over financial damages to businesses, resulting from the war in the North, which was estimated to cost the State approximately 800 million shekels, on top of the "few hundred million" shekels the state had reportedly already paid out in property damage compensation (Haaretz, July 28, 2006). The relevant public institutions furthermore issued lists that stated exactly to what amount of compensation a victim of the war is entitled to (for damage to health and to property). On August 10, 2006, the president of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry Haifa and the North stated that despite the compensation agreement, 10,000-15,000 businesses in the north failed to pay salaries to their employees by August 9, as mandated by law (Globes online, August 10, 2006).

Due to their national identity and harsh socio-economic situation, Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel are particularly affected by the repercussions of the war. About 50% of the population of northern Israel is Arab, and this community was faced with the following specific problems:

All announcements and emergency regulations are issued in Hebrew, and the majority of Arab citizens lacks access to such public information;

Arab communities lack basic services, such as shelters or social workers to attend to trauma victims, and according to testimonies, hospitalised Arab trauma victims are often not provided with proper information about compensation procedures;

Many Arab citizens are self-employed in small businesses, and whole families, especially from the Sakhnin region, depend on seasonal work in tourism and agriculture in the Upper Galilee. No compensation regulations exist for these sectors, and small businesses will be forced to lay off employees;

Apart from the every-day discrimination against them, Arab citizens will now be increasingly exposed to xenophobia by the general Israeli public, who looks at them as the enemy from within. As experienced after the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, the expected wave of anti-Arab sentiments may lead to mass lay-offs of Arab workers in Israel.

On July 28, 2006, Sawt el-Amel launched the emergency project with ads in the local Arabic newspapers Hadith al-Nas (Nazareth), Fasl al-Maqal (regional), Panorama (regional), Medina (Haifa) and Sawt al-Balad (Shaghur, i.e. the region around Karmiel). The ads were placed for two weeks, and in August 2006, the Arabic-language Radio Shams ran a two-week campaign for the hotline.

On the first day, the hotline received about 50 phone calls from all across northern Israel (Nazareth, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Majd el-Krum).

Specific Goals

Provide legal advise and support to workers and direct victims of the war in claims related to labour and national insurance law;

Advocate for full and unbiased realisation of the state's obligation to compensate trauma victims and to enforce labour law in war-related lay-offs and other violations of workers' rights;

Raise awareness among the Arab population in Israel about workers' rights and national insurance law in cases of emergency;

Coordinate its activities with our Arab and Jewish civil society partners in order to complement and not duplicate the initiatives of others.

Target Groups

Arab workers in northern Israel;

Arab victims of trauma suffered during the recent war on Lebanon;

The Arab population in Israel in general.

Sawt el-Amel is aware of the multiple factors that lead to the particular vulnerability of

women to exploitation and psychological trauma, and these gender-specific issues are taken into account, for instance by the recruitment of female team members and by regular consultation with Sawt el-Amel's Women's Platform.

Project outputs and outcomes in short:

More than 1,500 people called the hotline;

135 people came to Sawt el-Amels head office in Nazareth, and 250 people came to the mobile emergency office in Majd el-Krum in northern Israel;

44 labour cases have already been successfully closed; the remaining 38 will most probably be taken to court.

140 compensation claims were submitted to the National Insurance Institute on behalf of trauma victims from northern Israel. 20 claimants so far have received their compensation; the remaining cases are pending;

Compensation paid for the 20 cases closed in 2006 ranged between NIS 9,000 (~USD 2,000) and NIS 45,000 (~USD 10,000).

28 letters were written by Sawt el-Amels lawyer to employers who withheld salaries (as a result, all these salaries were paid);

As of December 2006, 16 war-related cases of workers are pending in the Nazareth and Haifa labour courts;

Sawt el-Amels fieldworkers made 10 field visits to hardship cases in Nazareth and the Shaghur region;

In August 2006, 30 children from Wisconsin participants participated in an activity day organised by the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) after the war;

The activities of the emergency hotline were covered extensively by the local Arabic press (Hadith al-Nas, Kull al-Arab, Fasl al-Maqal, as-Sunnara, Panorama, Sawt al-Balad); the team gave interviews to Arabic-language radio stations Radio Shams and Sawt Israel and the national Hebrew-language TV channels One and Two.

Related press releases:

Arab Citizens of Northern Israel Largely Excluded from Government's Emergency Response

Tackling the Humanitarian and Legal Dimensions of the War

Sawt el-Amel Opens Emergency Hotline for Workers and Victims of the War