Israel: Knesset approves budget 2026, with over 45 billion dollars allocated to Defense

AA / Jerusalem / Faruk Hanedar

La Knesset has approved the 2026 budget, which allocates 142 billion Israeli shekels (45.3 billion dollars) to defense ministry spending.

According to the Times of Israel newspaper, the 2026 budget, approved in a plenary session of the Knesset, has become the largest budget in Israel’s history.

In addition to the 45.3 billion dollars allocated to the defense ministry, the budget provides an additional 22 billion shekels (about 7 billion dollars) for ministry revenue-related expenses, as well as 82.2 billion shekels (26.3 billion dollars) for long-term expenditure commitments.

The controversial budget, totaling 850.6 billion shekels (about 271 billion dollars), described by opposition leader Yair Lapid as “the biggest theft in the history of the state,” was adopted by 62 votes to 55 in the 120-seat Knesset.

The budget vote was held under the threat of the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) parties, coalition allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who threatened not to approve the budget due to the lack of a law exempting students from yeshivas from military service.

Under Israeli law, failure to approve the budget by the end of March results in the government’s fall and the holding of early elections within three months. The adoption of the budget allowed the Netanyahu government to avoid the prospect of early elections amid strikes against Iran.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the budget allocates 790 million shekels (about 252 million dollars) for yeshiva and Haredi institutions, suggesting that this allocation was made “as if saving property from a fire in the middle of the night.” The paper noted that the opposition was caught off guard by this secret government plan, pointing out that these funds for the Haredim had previously been frozen by the Israeli Attorney General.

* Translated from Turkish by Mariem Njeh