Social Issues | Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Exploited "Intersection Children" Must Be Protected and Cared For

© Palex66 | Dreamstime.com On November 18, 2025, ACRI reached out to the Police Commissioner, the Directors-General of the Ministry of Welfare and the Ministry of National Security, and the State Attorney, demanding immediate and systematic action to address the ongoing issue of "intersection children." These are Palestinian minors, including children as young as five, who are brought to Israel in order to beg and sell trinkets at major traffic intersections. The children li

Dec 23, 20252 min read

A New Super-Pharm Policy Allowing Only Some with Disabilities to Skip the Line

© Ritu Jethani | Dreamstime.com In November 2025, the drugstore chain Super-Pharm decided to change its policy toward people with disabilities who hold a "queue exemption" card and would no longer allow individuals to skip the line for the pharmacy unless they are Ministry of Defense beneficiaries. It would continue to honor the "queue exemption" card at the regular checkout counters. In making the change, the chain relied on an interpretation of the law stating that accessib

Dec 16, 20251 min read

Ignored Appeals from Evacuated Residents of Sderot

Photo: Gali Bessido, Shatil-Stok On February 2, 2025, the Association for Civil Rights submitted a petition to the Ministry of Tourism on behalf of four residents from Sderot who were evacuated from their city days after the war began. These residents, who were dealing with the effects of being displaced from their homes, were then denied the housing grants they were entitled to, or discovered that they had accumulated debt with the National Insurance Institute due to incorre

Dec 12, 20252 min read

No More Hiding Behind Planters

Photo: © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com At the end of a major hearing at the Supreme Court this past July, the court's security guards feared violence from right-wing activists who had come to court. To avoid this, they helped representatives from ACRI quickly escape from the courtroom the moment the proceedings ended and tried to hide us in one of the corners of the building. And so there we found ourselves, after a principled and important legal hearing about the starva

Dec 7, 20253 min read

Providing Status to Female Palestinian Victims of Domestic Violence

© Emanuilov Shabtay | Dreamstime.com On May 6, 2024, we filed a legal petition (Hebrew) regarding the format of processing applications for providing legal status, on humanitarian grounds, submitted by Palestinian women who married an Israeli spouse and suffer from domestic violence. The petition was joined by Physicians for Human Rights, Woman to Woman, Women Against Violence, Women's Spirit, Itach-Ma'aki and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual. Palestinian

Dec 3, 20253 min read

Court Translation Services: Failures and Proposals for Improvement

Photo: Wix About half of Israel's residents—Arabs, immigrants, etc.—belong to minority groups where Hebrew is not the dominant language. There are also thousands of people who do not speak Hebrew who live in Israel, including Palestinians, migrant workers, tourists, refugees and asylum seekers, etc. When those who do not speak Hebrew fluently, or at all, need to go to court, translation services is necessary in the administration of justice and ensuring their right to access

Nov 4, 20253 min read

Rolling Back Protections for Migrant Workers

Illustrative. Foreign workers in Tel Aviv. Photo: Yossi Zamir, Shatil-stok Since the outbreak of the war, there has been a rollback of protections regarding the recruitment and employment of migrant workers in Israel. Three government decisions concerning the commerce and services sector are one area in which it is apparent that these protections, which were won after decades of intense work, are being removed. The three government decisions defined the "commerce and servi

Oct 19, 20253 min read

The Road of Death

Part of the dangerous road section. Photo: ACRI On August 16, 2025, ACRI approached the Civil Administration demanding that it maintain traffic safety measures and enforcement on the Eastern Ring Road (Road 4370), in the section between the villages of Anata and Az-Za'eem. This section of the road is frequently used by Palestinians traveling between the major cities in the West Bank: Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron. Nonetheless, it lacks basic safety standards: lanes and shou

Aug 16, 20252 min read