Massive Increase in Security Spending.. Approval of Israel's Budget for 2026

SadaNews - The Israeli Knesset approved, early Monday, in its second and third readings, the budget for the year 2026, which includes a massive increase in funding allocated for security, at a time when Israel is waging war on multiple fronts.

The Knesset stated in a statement, "As part of the budget update, and taking into account Operation Lion's Roar, more than 30 billion shekels (around 10 billion dollars) have been added to the Ministry of Defense's budget, bringing it to over 142 billion shekels."

Knesset members approved the budget with a majority of 62 votes in favor and 55 against.

The total proposed expenditure for 2026 is approximately 850 billion Israeli shekels, equivalent to about 270 billion dollars.

The "Times of Israel" described the budget approved by the Knesset as "the largest in Israel's history."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich confirmed that the new budget "will focus on allocating large-scale resources and unprecedented spending to meet the needs of the security system."

The statement mentioned that "the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 should be set at around 850 billion shekels, consisting of a regular budget of about 621 billion shekels, and a development budget and capital account of about 228 billion shekels. The conditional expenditure budget for 2026 is around 77 billion shekels, and the commitment budget is about 196 billion shekels."

According to the statement, "the expenditure limit budget will be about 699 billion shekels, and the debt repayment, excluding repayments to the National Insurance Institute, will be about 151 billion shekels."

The importance of approving the budget now is that its passage before March 31 prevents the collapse of Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

In what Israeli reports described as a "last-minute maneuver," the governing coalition began to agree to the ultra-Orthodox reservations shortly after midnight, meaning an increase in the budget in their favor.

According to Israeli channel 12, 109 Knesset members, including some opposition members who were not paying attention, voted in favor of increasing the budget.

The Israeli public broadcasting authority reported that opposition members sat for a long time and voted with the coalition with a majority exceeding one hundred Knesset members, until they noticed; in fact, one of the reservations received a rare approval of 109 members, with no opposition.