JERUSALEM, Dec. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli parliament Knesset's constitution, law and justice committee on Monday approved the Holocaust victims' bill and submitted it to the plenum for second and third readings.

   The parliament subcommittee's approval came after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had urged Finance Minister Ehud Olmert to push the legislation through and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin had promised to make all-out efforts to ensure that it is passed.

   Parliament member Colette Avital, who heads the subcommittee that prepared the bill, will hold a press conference Tuesday to announce that for the first time in its history, the State of Israel will take action to restore Holocaust victims' assets in Israel to their legal heirs.

   However, representatives of organizations involved in framing the legislation cast doubt on the arrangement, charging the politicians will benefit from helping to pass the law, while people who need the money will have to wait years before seeing it.

   A government-owned company is to be tasked with collecting the victims' assets and paying the heirs.

   According to the law, any person or company in possession of the assets of a Holocaust victim must transfer them to the company within 30 days of receiving notice.

   However, one of the main entities that is holding victims' assets, the Jewish Colonial Trust (JCT), has expressed its opposition on transferring them to the government-owned company.

   About 2.5 percent of shares valued at hundreds of millions of shekels (local currency) of Bank Leumi, which is a prestigious private bank in Israel, were under the names of around 150,000 JCT shareholders, who are defined as "absent" under the assumption that most or all of them were Jews and perished in the Holocaust.

   But only small part of the assets has the possibility to be claimed, for most heirs of these "absent" shareholders are hard to find or confirmed nowadays.

   Once the government company is formed, it will has the right to take care of all assets belonging to Holocaust victims. Enditem