An analysis of the Israeli economic newspaper Globes warned that the Benjamin Netanyahu government may incur additional costs with the start of the Israeli army to summon thousands of reserve soldiers in preparation for the expansion of the war on the Gaza Strip.
The analysis stated that these high costs will increase the uncertainty in the Israeli economy, and to be added to the heavy losses incurred by the soldiers and their families during the past 18 months of the war on the Strip.
The analysis said that the Israeli army has not yet asked the Ministry of Finance additional budgets to cover the planned escalation in the Gaza Strip, but previous experiments indicate that the request for financial assistance is a matter of time, especially since the resumption of the war on Gaza is not the basis on which the 2025 budget was built, which was recently approved by the Knesset only one month ago.
The total defense budget for this year is 110 billion shekels (30.4 billion dollars), between 15 and 17 billion shekels (4.14 billion dollars and 4.7 billion dollars) of this amount for reserve soldiers.
According to the analysis reported by Globes, this amount was calculated based on the expectation of a gradual decrease in the intensity of security operations during the year 2025, a assumption that has now collapsed in light of the escalation of the war on Gaza.
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Since the end of the ceasefire last March, the expenses of the service of reserve soldiers increased significantly to exceed the original plan, even before the current summons, which may eventually force the Ministry of Finance to adjust the budget, the newspaper says.
According to Globes, the total cost of the recruitment of a reserve soldier is approximately a thousand shekels ($ 276.49) per day.
The newspaper says, “In a more optimistic scenario in which the current round is limited to recruiting a relatively limited number of reserve soldiers for a week or two weeks,” or a calm, the cost will reach hundreds of millions of shekels, and this is an amount supposed to be absorbed by the defense budget for 2025, and if not easily, “the newspaper says.
In the budget this year, 10 billion shekels (2.76 billion dollars) were allocated for the possibility of another war, but this attempt did not succeed completely, the government (the defense fund) used as a small fund to fill the budget loopholes, and most of it has run out, and 3 billion shekels (829.4 billion dollars) remain out of 10 billion shekels.
