The Knesset’s budget will be cut by NIS 80 million, which will be redirected for the benefit of the war effort, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana announced on Monday just before the day’s plenum session began.
During the session, the Knesset passed a law that would allow the families of people who were missing or were kidnapped to receive the same compensation given to families of fallen soldiers. The law applies to the families of citizens as well as families of non-citizens who went missing or were kidnapped while legally in Israel.
The law also contained an amendment to the law on the families of fallen soldiers, adding the partners and spouses in single-sex relationships to be considered as IDF widows and widowers.
An additional law passed
Another law passed was aimed at maximizing the benefit of inheritance from people who were killed on October 7 and in the resulting war.
The new law allows those entitled to inherit from people who were killed in terrorism or war, fallen soldiers, and killed police officers and prison guards to give up their share for the benefit of other family members entitled to inheritance.
In terms of inheritance from October 7 victims, if multiple family members were killed in Hamas’s attack between October 7 and 8, the inheritance laws would default to cases where the two died together.
The Knesset also passed a law that would allow Justice Minister Yariv Levin and the High Court of Justice to extend the term of office for the commissioner for audit of judges.
While most laws passed since the beginning of the war have had widespread agreement, the opposition was against this law. As such, Legislation Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman said he did not want to advance the bill.
The bill made it to its second and third votes anyway because the committee voted for it with only Rothman and MK Gilad Kariv abstaining. The law only passed with three votes for it and one abstention.