HaMoked has lately learnt that many claims filed by East Jerusalem residents to the National Insurance Institute (NII) have not been answered in recent months, because the NII had stopped conducting investigations in East Jerusalem neighborhoods.
On February 18, 2015,
HaMoked wrote to the NII Director General to, inter alia, demand the immediate resumption of processing of all such unanswered claims, explain the decision to stop East Jerusalem investigations, and provide detailed information about the number of claims left pending as a result.
HaMoked recalled that the NII must process application within reasonable time, and that in failing to do so, it causes significant damage to families in dire economic situations, whose dignified existence depends on receiving the NII benefit – entitled to them by law. HaMoked stressed that while it objects to the investigations themselves, which are often crude and invasive, it is unacceptable that the residents of East Jerusalem would have to carry a heavy price for the investigations' abandonment.