The Knesset approved an over NIS 30 billion increase in the 2025 state budget toward the country’s defense budget during a plenum vote on Monday.
The bill passed its third reading with 55 in favor and 50 against, following a full day of speeches from coalition and opposition MKs in the plenum.
With the vote passed, an additional NIS 30.8 billion will be allocated to the Defense Ministry, National Insurance Institute, various security-related expenses, and for the payment of interest and fees.
The explanatory notes for the bill state that the increase in the defense budget is due to Operation Gideon’s Chariots in Gaza, along with the 12-day war with Iran.
The proposal for the bill explains that when the 2025 Budget Law was drafted and approved in March, those operations had not taken place, and as a result, the various expenses were not calculated therein.
The vote comes after marathon Finance Committee meetings on the matter since the bill passed its first reading in the plenum at the start of September.
Various opposition MKs strongly objected to the decision to go ahead with the budget increase.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pushed for the bill’s passage. In the plenum, he underscored that the budget was specifically for war-related expenses, saying that “there’s not a single shekel” that would be directed toward anything else.
In a prior Finance Committee meeting this month, Smotrich also underscored that the additional budget would be used “solely for war-related defense expenses, no coalition projects.”
To raise the budget toward defense, funds will be allocated from the various other ministries, leading to an across-the-board cut, the proposal said. The proposal would also reportedly cause NIS 1.6 billion of the increased budget to go toward humanitarian aid in Gaza.
When attending a Finance Committee meeting to prepare the bill for its second and third readings, Smotrich stated that the initial 2025 state budget was prepared for various situations, but “the successes, with enormous help from above, resulted in higher costs.”
Smotrich also spoke optimistically about the country’s economic situation at the plenum, saying that “the shekel is much stronger” and that “the stock market is breaking records.”
'The coalition's failure to uphold its commitments'
Ahead of the Knesset vote, the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party announced that its MKs would vote against the defense budget increase because of a lack of “progress on the most essential matters for Judaism,” referring to the draft issue. Smotrich responded that it was “total irresponsibility to harm the defense budget during a war.”
“I call on the ultra-Orthodox Knesset members: Come to your senses. While tens of thousands of reservists are spending the holidays away from their homes, you do not undermine the war and Israel’s security,” he added.
The coalition and opposition currently both have a tied 60 seats after UTJ left the coalition in July following the controversy surrounding negotiations around the haredi conscription law proposal. Shas, the Sephardi haredi party, also left the government for the same reason, though it remained in the coalition.
Shas stated ahead of the vote that it would vote in favor of the budget increase.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Blue and White head MK Benny Gantz were absent from the vote.