Nurses strike across Israel on working conditions and wages

The strike will affect hospitals, clinics and health centers across the country. Operating theaters and hospital departments have already announced their intention to have only essential services.

Nurses protest in front of the Ministry of Health in Jerusalem on Monday (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

"We are not slaves," said Edward Hadad, president of the Nurse Association of the Galilee Medical Center in the northern city of Nahariya.

"The fight is about a chronic shortage of nurses that has been going on for years."

A sign at the Galilee Medical Center announcing the nurses' strike (Photo: Aviahu Shapira)

He said that the lack of staff had significantly increased the workload of nurses.

"Nurses have to do more tasks that keep them away from patients," he said.

"More than a thousand nurses work in hospitals – but we still do not have 145 employees."

Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman, speaking at Sheba Medical Center (Photo: Shaul Golan)

The collapse of negotiations with the finance and health ministries, which triggered the strike, was followed on Monday night by demonstrations of nurses outside the building of the Ministry of Health in Jerusalem.

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman said on Tuesday that the strike was causing "unnecessary suffering" to patients.

At a conference held at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Litzman said he would ask the Labor Court to issue an injunction ordering striking nurses to return to work.