Huge economic pressure: Amid war with Iran, Israel sharply increases defense budget.

Israel Parliament approves significant defense budget increase

• Israel’s Parliament has approved a massive increase in defense spending.
• This will jump by several billion dollars.
• Bethsabée Salem, correspondent in Israel, discusses the reasons for this sharp increase on LCI.

A substantial extra allocation. The Israeli Parliament approved, on Monday, March 30, a massive increase in defense budget, around 8 to 9 billion dollars, a month after the start of the conflict in the Middle East. The state’s expenses in this area have been significantly increasing in recent years.

“This is a 20% increase compared to last year”, points out Bethsabée Salem, correspondent in Israel, on LCI. In this domain, France has a slightly higher budget than Israel’s even though it has a much larger population. However, “an Israeli funds six times more of the defense budget than a French. It’s a huge economic pressure”, the journalist pointed out on Monday.

Israel’s involvement in several conflicts is behind this situation. The air defense and interception systems also represent significant expenses for Israel. “When ballistic missiles are intercepted, it costs between 1 and 3 million dollars each time. You have to multiply that by all the missiles that are fired” , continues Bethsabée Salem. The strong mobilization of reservists also has a high cost.

For Israel, the economic cost of wars is significant. “The pressure is very heavy. Just before the war, the Israeli economy had just stabilized”, concludes the correspondent, present in Tel Aviv.