JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet is set to approve a 2024 wartime budget on Thursday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday, after ministers approved 9 billion shekels ($2.5 billion) in financial support for military reservists.
“The state of Israel puts the reservists and their families at the center and this is the anchor of the budget for 2024 that we will deliver this weekend,” Smotrich said in a joint statement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Israel last year approved a two-year budget for 2023 and 2024, but the war against Hamas in Gaza has shaken government finances, requiring budget changes and additional spending.
In December parliament approved a special war budget for 2023 of nearly 30 billion shekels to help fund the war and compensate those impacted by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks that sparked the war.
Smotrich’s spokesman clarified that the budget vote would likely take place on Thursday but offered no further details.
The Finance Ministry has said that the war will likely cost at least another 50 billion shekels in 2024 and result in a near-tripling of its budget deficit to around 6% of GDP, in a projection that fighting will last through February.
The Bank of Israel is urging the government to rein in spending unrelated to the war to balance out the additional defence and home-front expenses, saying looser fiscal policy could slow the pace of interest rate reductions.
($1 = 3.6705 shekels)
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Ros Russell)
