COMPENSATION

Israel has reversed its policy toward the Arab Israeli victims of August 4's terror attack by a Jewish extremist. Their families will now receive compensation, just as do Jewish Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks.

The quasi-governmental Jewish Agency announced Sunday that it would pay compensation for the first time to the families of Arab Israelis who have been victims of a Jewish "act of terrorism."

The relatives of four Israeli Arabs shot dead on August 4 by a Jewish extremist, who had hoped to sabotage the pullout of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, will receive 100,000 shekels ($22,000), the agency said.

"We have decided not to make any distinction between victims of whoever resorted to terrorism," the agency's director Zeev Beilsky told public radio.

The agency has previously paid out funds to some 3,000 families who have suffered as a result of attacks carried out during the five-year Palestinian uprising.