Teaching is set to resume in Israeli universities on Sunday, after striking faculty reached a pay deal with the treasury.

The 4,700 tenured academics at the country’s seven public universities will see their salaries increase by 24.5% by 2010. The deal will end a 13-week strike that has shut down Israel’s universities.

The agreement was still being hashed out as as of today’s formal midday deadline, after which the universities were to prepare for closure on Sunday.

Now, however, things are set to go back to normal.

“The strike is over — we are very happy,” Ronnie Ellenblum, one of the seven academics who led the strike, told the Forward on Friday afternoon. “We will do whatever is needed to allow students to resume their scholarship as soon as possible.”

Pointing out that salaries had actually fallen in real terms by 35% over the last decade, he said: “We didn’t get all we struggled for, but this is the best contract in the last 10 to 15 years.”

For previous Forward coverage of the university strike, click here.

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