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A WHEELCHAIR-BOUND Israeli who set himself alight over the spiralling cost of living died of his injuries, medics said on Wednesday, raising to two the number of Israelis who have died in such protests.
A spokesman for Tel HaShomer hospital near Tel Aviv said Akiva Mafi, 45, died of injuries sustained on July 22, in a development two days after the government voted through a harsh package of austerity measures likely to further hit the underprivileged.
“Akiva Mafi has died as a result of his burns,” a spokesman for the hospital said on Israel’s army radio.
Mafi sustained burns on 80 per cent of his body after he doused himself in petrol and set himself alight as he waited for an early morning bus, just two days after the death of a man who set himself on fire a week earlier during a mass protest against the cost of living.
Moshe Silman, who died on July 20, was the first Israeli to take such an extreme step in a move which has prompted at least six copycat actions.
In a letter he read out before setting himself alight, Silman accused the Israeli establishment of “taking from the poor and giving to the rich.”
On Sunday, Israel approved a package of sweeping austerity measures it said were essential to cut the budget deficit and shield the economy from crises which have rocked other economies.
Central to the plan are hikes in income and sales taxes, as well as a 700-million-shekel (€140 million) cut to the 2012 state budget.
The steps are likely to increase already widespread anger over the soaring cost of living in the Jewish state, which saw mass protests sweeping the country last summer.
There have been renewed protests this year.
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RIP to the poor souls. Pretty drastic action to take all the same though.
Find it hard to feel sympathy for such idiocy.
Apparantly there will be no austerity measures in the afterlife..!
Israel spring has just started
I don’t I would go as far as that…
This has been going on well over a year now. Over a 10th of the population were involved in marches and encampments since early last year but the international press didn’t deem it important.
That’s because no one really cares…. would have lot more sympathy if they weren’t getting vast aide payments from the US government every year and acting like the Rourth Reich towards Palestinians.
Well thats the Israeli government, not the people.
Derek who elects the Government?
Don’t start with that Democracy crap, it doesn’t exist. The people with the deepest pockets make the decisions and there are some very deep pockets in Israel.
I dunno Brian, over here we are left with continuity FF in FG. We were promised the sun, moon and stars and look what we ended up with..
It’s not too far a stretch to believe that the Israeli people were promised the same. The government and general direction they take I have very little respect for, but that’s the government – and as pointed out above its the people with the deep pockets who control them. The Israeli people are merely the ones caught in the crossfire of the mess made by those they elected to represent them – even though they don’t.
I sympathise with those feeling the pain of austerity in Israel, because like us, they are just people who happen to live in a messed up country, and really, perfect countries are a mythical thing.. The only people we should be directing anger at are the ones in power who keep making a mess of everything!
have your say