Government funds to warm the needy

Girl dies of hypothermia in Negev; man freezes under Netivot bush, woman dies on Bat Yam bench.

By RUTH EGLASH, JUDY SIEGEL, JERUSALEM POST STAFF
fucking freezing 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski )
fucking freezing 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski )
With the number of people dying as a result of the recent cold rising, Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog announced this week an emergency allocation of NIS 750,000 for low socioeconomic communities. The money is slated to go to distributing heating equipment and blankets to those in need. On Tuesday morning, a 50-year-old homeless woman was found dead from hypothermia on a bench in Bat Yam. Passers by alerted a Magen David Adom crew to the scene after they found the woman. Bottles of alcohol were found under the bench. A man found in the area was also treated by the MDA crew and he was later evacuated to a hospital. His condition was unknown. A 45-year-old homeless man was found dead under a bush in Netivot on Tuesday afternoon. Police found no signs of violence on the man and suspected that he fell victim to the cold weather. Also on Tuesday, an eight-year-old Beduin girl died at Soroka University Medical Center on Tuesday after suffering from hypothermia. Her body temperature was only 26 degrees Celsius, when the normal is 37 degrees. The doctors' efforts to save the girl, who lives in a Beduin village in the south, were not successful. Over the weekend, two people died as a result of the extreme cold weather, a 40-year-old homeless man in Holon and a 78-year-old woman from Beersheba. "I have approved a million shekels for an emergency plan [to help those in need from the cold]," Herzog told The Jerusalem Post. "Our bureaus are working 24 hours a day to make sure that people in need get heating supplements for their homes." Herzog's plan is for his ministry to lay out NIS 750,000 for the project, with local authorities, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Eilat, Beersheba, Holon and Bat Yam, matching it with a total of NIS 250,000. The ministry also said that an emergency internal committee was being formed to inform those in need about available heating options.