A year on, Ukrainian refugees in Israel getting ‘inadequate’ aid — rights group

A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, starting a war that caused a flood of refugees to many countries, including Israel, a rights group accuses the Jewish state of “withholding adequate health and welfare services from Ukrainian refugees.”

Assaf, an Israeli nonprofit dealing with refugee rights, estimates that some 14,000 Ukrainian citizens without Jewish roots fled to Israel over the past year, in addition to 20,000 others who were in the country before the February 24, 2022, invasion.

“Both of these groups of Ukrainian citizens are currently protected from deportation to Ukraine and legally reside in Israel,” Assaf says in its report. “Now, a full year later, some of the Israeli government’s aid to them, inadequate to begin with, is being withdrawn. The refugees’ plight is intensifying.

“The State of Israel must come to its senses. There is a need to map the current needs of those who cannot return to their homes and to give them the necessary social support services so they can live in Israel with dignity.”