RAMAT GAN, Israel -- The global quest to ferret out money and property left behind by Jews killed in the Holocaust is now targeting Israel, and investigators say it's proving at least as difficult in the Jewish state as it did in Europe.

Many big banks and the government itself have resisted efforts to claim hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for bank deposits, land, corporate shares, art and other assets that investigators say once belonged to Jews killed by the Nazis and their allies.

"I cannot say that the Israeli establishment has been, or is, happy about the return of properties," says Avraham Roet, the recently retired chairman of the Company for Location & Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets Ltd. The private firm, often referred to simply as the Company, was created by the Israeli parliament after its investigators identified up to 9,000 bank accounts suspected of belonging …