Maternity leave in Israel is to be extended from 12 to 14 weeks, as per a decision by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation following a compromise with the Finance Ministry.

According to a proposal by the committee chairman, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, the leave will be extended to 13 weeks immediately on passage of the law, and beginning in 2009, it will be extended to 14 weeks.

The private members' bills initiated by MKs Dov Khenin (Hadash) Gideon Saar (Likud) and Sheli Yachimovich (Labor) on Sunday won the support of the Ministerial Committee on Legislation.

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According to the original proposals, the leave was to be extended to either 14 or 16 weeks; however, following treasury opposition, the extension was limited.

The bill is to be brought before the Knesset for a preliminary reading in a few days.

The lawmakers who proposed the bill stated that research shows the importance of fostering the relationship between mother and baby in the early months after birth, which was expressed in a resolution of the United Nation's International Labor Organization (ILO), and the particularly long maternity leaves customary in many European countries.

The extension of maternity leave will reduce the numbers of women who resign from their jobs because of the difficulty of finding proper child care, they said.

The Knesset's center for research and information found about six months ago that Israel had the shortest maternity leave of all the countries surveyed. Leave in the United Kingdom is six months, and Norway has the longest leave - an entire year. In all countries except the United States and Australia, mothers have the right to pay during their leave, and not only to rights such as keeping their place of work and immunity from dismissal.

In Israel, the pay during maternity leave is 100 percent of the salary the mother earned prior to the birth. In other countries the allowance is lower than the salary.

The ILO recommends that maternity leave begin four to six weeks before the birth, and continue for 16 weeks thereafter. The ILO states that maternity leave should be at least 14 weeks long, and that the state should grant payments to the mother that will be sufficient to support her and the newborn while she is absent from work.

In Israel, fathers are also entitled to paternity leave for half the total period, on condition that the mother took leave during the first six weeks after the birth for a minimum of three weeks, and if both parents agreed to the arrangement.