War with Hamas costs Israeli regime $260m per day: Report
With Israel’s war against Hamas costing the economy around $260 million every day, payouts to ultra-orthodox schools and other causes championed by right-wingers in the ruling coalition have set off a reckoning for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Bloomberg has reported that the ongoing war with Hamas has cost the Israeli regime too much and left a heavy financial burden on that regime's governmen budget.
This comes as Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war at any cost.
Bloomberg pointed out that Israel's budget deficit has increased by seven times in October as compared to last year's corresponding period.
Built into Israel’s expenditure program are so-called “coalition funds", or discretionary spending earmarked to the five parties comprising Netanyahu’s government, the most religious in Israel’s history. A record 14 billion shekels ($3.6 billion) in transfers approved last May will partly go toward religious schools — some exempt from teaching subjects like English and math. Other favored projects include the development of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
While the special allotments are a fraction of the total budget for 2023-2024, they have become a marker of competing priorities at a time when Israel confronts its worst armed conflict in half a century.