Israel Passes Record 2026 Budget
The financial plan cleared its third and final reading in the Knesset with a vote of 62 to 55, as reported by a newspaper.
Valued at 850.6 billion shekels ($271 billion), the budget earmarks 143 billion shekels ($45.8 billion) for the Defense Ministry—marking the highest defense funding ever recorded in Israel, according to Hebrew-language media outlets.
The decision was finalized just ahead of a statutory deadline on Tuesday, beyond which failure to approve the budget would have automatically led to early parliamentary elections.
Opposition chief Yair Lapid voiced strong dissatisfaction with the approved plan.
“The greatest theft in the history of the state has been completed,” he stated on the US social media company X’s platform.
“They took the money from reservists and gave it to draft dodgers. They robbed working people and gave it to the corrupt,” he added.
The budget’s passage comes during the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, a conflict that has intensified regional instability and driven a significant rise in Israel’s defense expenditures.
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