The decision was made in response to a request filed by Kadima MK Yisrael Hasson and will be implemented for any future abductees and prisoners of war upon their return to Israeli soil.

MK Hasson thanked the Director of the Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. (res.) Udi Shani, for making the decision. The move “allows us as a state and as citizens to give the minimum required of us to combat soldiers who have come back from captivity, in order to enable them to function normally again… It is not right that a returning captive have to face another ordeal and fight for his basic rights with bureaucratic committees, in order to prove that he is indeed worthy of being defined as disabled.”