A third of Israeli children live in poverty, food insecurity

27.6% of Israelis live in poverty and 23.6% of Israeli households are on the brink of poverty, according to the 19th Alternative Poverty Report by LATET, an organization that combats poverty and food insecurity in Israel, reported by Israeli website Jerusalem Post.

The report found that out of the Israelis living in poverty, 1,118,000 (36.9%) are children. The poverty rate in Israel has risen since the coronavirus crisis began, with 233,000 more families facing economic hardship since the pandemic began.

The middle class has also shrunk substantially during the crisis, falling from 58.3% of Israeli society to 48.3%, according to the report. 

LATET found that those living in poverty face extreme difficulty receiving basic needs.

633,000 (21.8%) families in Israel, one out of every five, live under the shadow of food insecurity. 774,000 children, nearly a third (31%) of all children in Israel, live with food insecurity. The cost for food to provide basic nutrition to a family of five in Israel stood at about NIS 3,186.

Overall, 1,942,000 (25%) of all Israelis suffer from food insecurity, the report found. Nearly a third (29.5%) of those requiring aid for food security only started needing aid since the coronavirus crisis began.

77% of those supported by LATET and its partners said that the food they could buy was not enough and that they did not have enough money to buy more. 52% of those supported said that they narrowed the size of their meals or skipped meals due to a lack of money. 48.4% reported that they do not have enough nutritious meals.

77.3% of organizations that provide food reported a rise in requests for aid compared to before the pandemic.

40.4% of those supported have had their electricity or water cut off in the past year due to an inability to pay their bills. Three-quarters (75.4%) of those supported reported that they could not have serious defects in their apartments fixed due to economic reasons.

Israelis living in poverty also face job insecurity, with 29.7% of those supported reporting that there was a high or very high chance that they would lose their jobs. 56.5% of those supported stated that a health condition kept them from working or improving their work status.