Smotrich’s proposed 2025 budget seemed like an economic austerity plan following the contraction of the Israeli economy due to the war in Gaza.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has been the longest in Tel Aviv’s history and cost up to $68 billion, according to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

“We are in the longest and most expensive war in Israel’s history with about NIS 200 billion to NIS 250 billion ($54 billion to $68 billion) in direct costs,” Smotrich at a press conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday during his budget speech.

“This war began with a huge crisis between the state and its citizens and we had to rebuild trust,” he said, according to the Times of Israel. “The decisions we made for an expansionary economic policy during the war were the right ones, which kept the society and the national resilience alive, and kept the economy going as well.”

Smotrich’s proposed 2025 budget seemed like an economic austerity plan following the contraction of the Israeli economy due to the war in Gaza, the Middle East Monitor reported.

Proposed Measures

His proposed measures include freezing income tax brackets, a freeze on public sector pay, freezing the minimum wage, a surtax on undistributed company profits and abolishing VAT exemption for tourists.

“We are at war,” said the far-right minister. “But we will all win together on the economic front. Everyone is equally under the burden. No one will see less in their bank account, but yes, there will be freezes.”

He claimed that the budget deficit will be less than the expected 6.6 percent because it will rise in the coming months, but it will fall again making it less than expected for the last quarter of this year, the report said.

“As of now, we are still committed to meeting the deficit target for 2024 as we expect the deficit to be on a downward slope in the last quarter of the year,” Smotrich stressed.

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The finance minister added, “I am proud of the way we are leading the economy during the last eleven complex months of the war.”

He said the “results are good in terms of national resilience – the resilience of businesses, the stabilisation of the military and the support we have provided to those who are evacuated from their homes on the southern and northern borders.”

Israeli media outlets reported that it is not clear at this time whether Smotrich will be able to pass the 2025 budget, nor is it clear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is interested in it or whether the coalition parties have agreed to it.

Staggering Death Toll

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 40,861 Palestinians have been killed, and 94,398 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

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Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.

The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.

(MEMO, PC)