Newly-appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says he won’t give any more interviews until at least Rosh HaShana. But he will at least make sure that IDF Sgt. Yehuda HaYisraeli will get his home adjustments paid for.
Liberman, who heads the Yisrael Beytenu party, opened the faction meeting on Monday by saying, “I will step into my position and learn the material,” before he says anything further to the media.
He did, however, also announce that the Defense Ministry will cover rehabilitative adjustment expenses for IDF Sgt. Yehuda HaYisraeli, who has returned home from the hospital after nearly two years in a coma and several months of rehabilitation.
HaYisraeli still has a very long way to go with rehabilitation treatment to continue at home, and hundreds of thousands of shekels must be spent on adjustments to the home.
Such expenses for soldiers wounded in the line of duty are always covered by the IDF and Defense Ministry. HaYisraeli was wounded during Operation Protective Edge in August 2014. He had raced after the Hamas terrorists who stole the body of his fellow officer, IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed and then kidnaped in Gaza during what was supposed to be a cease-fire.
But because HaYisraeli lives in Ofra, a community located in Judea and Samaria, the government has held back on paying for the adjustments to the home due to a quiet construction freeze in the region implemented in hopes of placating the Palestinian Authority and its global supporters.
Liberman has brushed aside the freeze in the case of the wounded soldier, and said his ministry will pay the home adjustment expenses for IDF Sgt. Yehuda HaYisraeli.
