Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities on Tuesday night voted to approve a NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) improve to the 2025 state funds — NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) of which is able to go towards humanitarian support for Gaza.
This angered some members of Netanyahu’s cupboard in addition to opposition figures like Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, who accused the federal government of “paying taxes to Hamas.” The extra funds will nonetheless require the approval of the Knesset.
The rise will primarily go towards protection spending and will likely be accompanied by an across-the-board reduce of three.35 % of ministerial budgets set to enter impact firstly of subsequent 12 months.
In response to the Ynet information website, the ministries with already bigger budgets would be the most affected by the cuts, with the Nationwide Safety Ministry set to face the most important slash to its spending.
Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Schooling Minister Yoav Kisch mentioned in a joint statement on Tuesday morning that they might oppose the funds proposal being offered to the federal government except it included funding for safety at academic establishments within the coming faculty 12 months. Kisch additionally warned that failing to allocate the cash may delay the beginning of the college 12 months.
Talking in the course of the cupboard assembly, Kisch complained that whereas support to Gaza was being elevated, he had not obtained the funds he requested for psychological well being help for college students, telling Smotrich: “You favor the kids of Gaza over the kids of Israel.” Smotrich is a “small man with an enormous ego,” he mentioned, based on a transcript leaked to Hebrew media.
Schooling Minister Yoav Kisch attends a gathering of the Knesset Schooling, Tradition, and Sports activities Committee in Jerusalem, Might 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Ben Gvir additionally blasted Netanyahu in the course of the assembly, calling him “the one accountable” for this “shame,” based on leaked transcripts.
In response to criticisms, Netanyahu insisted that “the cash doesn’t go to Hamas, however to the help facilities, to the residents of Gaza,” prompting Ben Gvir to ask “why prioritize the kids of Gaza?”
Israeli army operations have collapsed nearly all providers in Gaza, and it’s accountable beneath worldwide legislation to facilitate the entry of humanitarian support into the conflict zone.
In a press release responding to the criticism, Smotrich panned the minority of “populist ministers” who have been extra excited by “hurling private insults and producing headlines,” whereas the vast majority of cupboard members confirmed nationwide duty by passing the funds.
After it was handed in March, the controversial NIS 755 billion ($205 billion) 2025 state funds was lauded by Smotrich, who declared that it had “every thing we have to win on the entrance and the house entrance.”
Earlier this month, the far-right politician acknowledged advancing the switch of billions of shekels from Israeli public coffers towards the availability of humanitarian support to Gaza, after having beforehand opposed the entry of any help to the Hamas-ruled enclave.
Armed Palestinians sit on vans carrying humanitarian support close to the Zikim border crossing between Israel and Beit Lahia within the northern Gaza Strip, August 18, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/ Flash90)
In a press release of his personal, Ben Gvir, whose Otzma Yehudit get together ran on a joint ticket with Smotrich’s Non secular Zionism within the final election, referred to as the choice “to fund support for the Gazans on the expense of the Israeli taxpayer” a “disgrace and shame” that will find yourself serving to Hamas.
‘Paying taxes to Hamas’
Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu opposition get together, used related rhetoric, arguing in a publish on X that the extra support had been authorised “regardless of the IDF’s warning that the overwhelming majority of the ‘support’ reaches Hamas.”
“The federal government is stealing from the residents and paying taxes to Hamas,” Liberman charged.
Opposition chief Yair Lapid slammed the transfer as harmful for Israelis’ well being.
“The federal government’s resolution to chop the well being basket means each disgrace is lifeless, and sick individuals will die as nicely. Funding may come from closing 15 superfluous ministries and canceling coalition funds for corruption and draft dodgers,” Lapid declared in a tweet.
“As an alternative, the worst authorities in Israel’s historical past is slicing healthcare, schooling, and welfare. Disgraceful.”
Opposition Chief Yair Lapid speaks throughout a press convention in Tel Aviv on July 28, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
The amended funds additionally garnered criticism from Netanyahu’s former ultra-Orthodox allies, with leaders of the United Torah Judaism get together railing in opposition to a reduce of NIS 481 million ($142 million) in taxpayer cash put aside for Haredi faculties’ eventual inclusion within the authorities’s New Horizon program, which funds work in small teams between academics and pupils and bumps up trainer salaries, amongst different initiatives.
This system is at the moment restricted to state faculties and doesn’t apply to impartial Haredi establishments, which don’t train secular topics. The cash is at the moment frozen till it might probably ultimately be legally allotted.
UTJ MK Moshe Gafni appeared to threaten to vote in opposition to will increase to the protection funds on Tuesday afternoon, saying that “subsequent month, when the protection funds comes up for approval within the Knesset and the Finance Committee… we are going to seek the advice of the nice Torah sages on learn how to vote, in gentle of all of the current developments.”
