The government approved Sunday a bill proposed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, to give IDF reservists’ widows a one-time grant of NIS 100,000. The grant will be given in two installments.

All widows of IDF veterans killed during their army service – from 1948 to 1998 – will now be eligible for the grant. The bill will be brought before the Knesset for approval in the first reading Monday, and placed on a legislative fast track.

Thanks to a law passed in 1999, IDF widows whose husbands were killed since 1999 receive similar grants. However, that law did not include widows whose husbands died earlier. The new law fixes that loophole.

Barak said at the Cabinet session Sunday that the bill “closes a circle and is an obligation, both in morals and values, to the ‘family of the bereaved’ [as the population of relatives of IDF soldiers is often referred to – ed.]. He thanked Minister Limor Livnat who helped hammer out the details of a compromise that made the bill possible.

MK Uri Ariel (National Union) has already presented to the Knesset another version of a similar law. The Coalition and Knesset decide to allow him to present his version of the law for preliminary reading, while postponing further voting on it, and preferring Barak’s version.