Israeli Defense Spending Soars as Parliament Passes Revised 2024 Budget

The Israeli parliament passed a revised state budget for 2024 on Wednesday, primarily aimed at funding its conflict with Hamas in Gaza. The new budget totals approximately 584 billion shekels (about $161 billion), marking a 70 billion shekel increase from the initial budget set in May of the previous year. A significant portion of this increase, 55 billion shekels, is allocated to defense spending. This adjustment leads to a projected fiscal deficit of 6.6% of the country’s gross domestic product. To facilitate these financial shifts, the government has implemented cuts across all ministries and introduced measures to boost state revenues. Among these measures are the taxation of bank profits and the reduction of convalescence payments to employees, a move that has been coordinated with the Histadrut, Israel’s largest worker union.