2023-10-16 12:09:51
Half of Israel’s hotel rooms are being used to house families evacuated from communities near the Gaza Strip, where Hamas gunmen launched a cross-border war on October 7, the head of the Hotel Association said Monday of Israel.
Israel has 56,000 hotel rooms and 28,000 are being made available to evacuees, with the state footing the bill, said Yael Danieli, the association’s executive director.
She told a parliamentary group debating compensation for war-affected residents that an additional 27,000 people from border towns near Lebanon were expected. The Israeli-Lebanese border has been the scene of an upsurge in hostilities as the Gaza war rages.
These citizens need meals and other social assistance from the state, Ms. Danieli added.
Foreign tourism has dried up since October 7, with many countries organizing flights to repatriate their nationals after most commercial airlines suspended flights to Tel Aviv.
The Dan Hotel chain said its hotels in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Herzliya were hosting evacuees, while rival Isrotel said its hotels in the Red Sea resort of Eilat were housing displaced families.
Yogev Gardos, Israel’s budget director, said the country’s initial response was to fund the military’s needs and now it must look to the economy as a whole.
“In a few days we will provide very large subsidies to the entire economy, the broad outlines of which will not provide total compensation for 100% of the economic damage, because the state cannot cope with it,” he told the commission.
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