Controversy following Israel Hayom's revelation that regional defense fighters in alert classes in Judea and Samaria will not be part of the NIS 7 billion benefits and grants program for reserve fighters. Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan wrote Sunday morning to the head of the ACA, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, demanding that what he described as the exclusion of combatants and "strange, humiliating and illegitimate discrimination" be corrected.
"We were amazed to discover," Dagan wrote in his letter, "that in the eyes of somebody, the soldiers who serve in Judea and Samaria guard the communities, and in some cases even carry out activities outside them – operations and checkpoints, the same fighters recruited to guard, carry out operational activity and prevent an invasion by terrorists, and carry out a variety of operations in the area – some on threatened routes and near hostile villages, are not defined for some reason in the definitions of the Manpower Division as combatants and have been excluded from the basket of benefits that will be granted to combatants."
"With all due respect, this is discrimination against the best fighters there are, strange, humiliating and illegitimate. How is it possible to exclude the armored personnel units, which are combat units for all intents and purposes that guard the communities day and night in the rain and cold, and quite a few of them also carry out patrols, checkpoints and proactive activity outside the areas of the communities?"
"Is their blood less red than that of their fellow fighters in their counterparts?
Is the fighter Ariel Ben Shitrit of Yitzhar, who was severely wounded by gunfire as a combat soldier?
These fighters risk their lives and they bring security to communities and beyond.
They cannot be shot down in front of the other fighters. I turn and ask, and even demand that the distortion be corrected."
Yossi Dagan, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The head of the regional council, Binyamin Israel Gantz, also responded last night: The fighters of the Gemar are at the forefront of defending the communities and they are fighters in every respect, and the same should be true of the grants and compensation. I spoke with Finance Minister Smotrich and he is determined to deal with this and settle the issue. I assume and hope that he will succeed in this and so it will be."
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