Israeli media reported that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will meet Sunday at an underground location to vote on cutting 2.6 billion shekels from ministry budgets to finance urgent military purchases.
اضافة اعلان
Israel Hayom reported that the cabinet meeting would be held that day at a secure underground location.
Netanyahu has for some time warned of the possibility of attacks against Israel ahead of the general election scheduled for October 27. Opposition leaders have described the warnings as fear-based election propaganda.
The official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that the government would vote during its meeting on an across-the-board cut of 2.6 billion shekels, or around $840 million, from all ministry budgets to “finance urgent security purchases,” without specifying what those purchases would be.
Since October 2023, Israel’s military campaign has continued across the region, including its ongoing war in Gaza and operations in the occupied West Bank. Israel has also fought two wars, one with Lebanon and another with Iran, carried out airstrikes on Yemen and Qatar, and conducted near-daily ground incursions into Syria.
According to Channel 12, the cuts will come from the budgets of ministries including education, health and social welfare, while coalition funds allocated to parties participating in the government will remain unaffected.
The channel quoted unnamed Finance Ministry officials as saying: “We warned that the massive increases in the security establishment’s budget would come at the expense of citizens.”
The planned cut comes days after the government decided on Wednesday to allocate 1.03 billion shekels, or $333 million, to purchase Apache helicopters from the United States.
According to the channel, the funds were secured through cuts to a development plan for Palestinian citizens inside Israel covering the 2027–2029 period.
Source: Anadolu
