JERUSALEM: The Israeli government’s budget headed for parliamentary approval Wednesday, a key test that will largely determine whether Prime Minister Nafatali Bennett’s ideologically disparate eight-party coalition remains in power.
Israel has not passed a state budget in three years, a symptom of the unprecedented political gridlock that plagued the country from December 2018 until June when the Bennett government was sworn in.
His coalition has until November 14 to get the budget approved or Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, will be dissolved, forcing new elections.
“We are at the finish line and before us are exhausting days and long nights in the Knesset, but the budget will pass,” Bennett said ahead of a cabinet meeting Thursday.
The government has proposed a 609-billion shekel ($194-billion) spending plan for 2021 and 573 billion shekels for next year.
Bennett’s government secured preliminary approval for a spending package in September, a technical step that allowed Knesset committees to scrutinize the proposals.
The committees were due to wrap up their reviews on Wednesday evening, when a general parliamentary debate on the package could commence.
The formal voting process may not begin until Thursday or later and the approval process could take several days.
Bennett told lawmakers that “passing the budget should be treated as the biggest, only challenge in the next few days.
“This is the mission, and we need to meet it.”
Bennett’s government — which includes right-wingers, centrists, doves and Islamists — controls just 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
It was a budget deadlock that sank the last, short-lived coalition led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his alternate premier Benny Gantz.
Gantz accused Netanyahu of deliberately blocking the budget’s passage to force an election, which the premier hoped would secure him and his right-wing allies an outright Knesset majority.
But Netanyahu came up short in the March vote for the fourth time in two years, paving the way for Bennett and Yair Lapid, now the foreign minister, to forge a coalition.
There have been widespread reports that Netanyahu, now the opposition leader, has been encouraging hawks within the government to vote against the budget, in hopes of triggering its collapse.
“We are pulling the country toward stability and there are those who are pulling it toward chaos, to more elections,” Bennett said Thursday.
On Tuesday night, hundreds of right-wing protesters gathered in Tel Aviv to denounce the “corrupt” budget, charging that it harms ultra-Orthodox Jews and lavishes spending on the Arab community.
But a lawmaker in Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, David Bitan, told army radio he expected the budget to be approved.
The government has approved nearly $10 billion in funding over five years to improve socio-economic conditions for Israel’s Arab minority, while hiking some taxes that the ultra-Orthodox argue will affect them the most.
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Israel government’s fate hangs on key budget vote
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Israel government’s fate hangs on key budget vote
- Israel has not passed a state budget in three years
- The government has proposed a 609-billion shekel ($194-billion) spending plan for 2021 and 573 billion shekels ($184-billion) for next year
Gazans long for reopening of ‘lifeline’ Rafah crossing
- The border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is the Palestinian territory’s only gateway to the outside world
- If Rafah opens in coming days, residents of the territory are hoping to reunite with family, or are looking to leave themselves
GAZA CITY: With Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing expected to soon reopen, residents of the war-shattered territory are hoping to reunite with family members, or are looking to leave themselves.
The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is the Palestinian territory’s only gateway to the outside world that does not lead to Israel and is a key entry point for both people and goods.
It has been closed since Israeli forces took control of it in May 2024, except for a limited reopening in early 2025, and other bids to reopen failed to materialize.
Following a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect in October, Rafah is expected to reopen for pedestrians, after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing.
“Opening the Rafah crossing means opening the door to life for me. I haven’t seen my wife and children for two years since they left at the beginning of the war and I was prevented from traveling,” said 48-year-old Mahmud Al-Natour, who hails from Gaza City.
“My children are growing up far away from me, and the years are passing by as if we are cut off from the world and life itself,” he told AFP.
Randa Samih, 48, also called the crossing “the lifeline of Gaza,” but is worried about whether she would be able to leave.
She had applied for an exit permit to get treatment for her injured back, which she fears might not be serious enough to be allowed out.
“There are tens of thousands of injuries in Gaza, most of them more serious than mine,” she said.
“We’ll die or our health will decline before we get to travel.”
- ‘Limited reopening’ -
Gaza, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before Hamas’s attack sparked the war.
Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage on October 7, 2023, in an attack that killed 1,221 others, most of them civilians.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 71,662 Palestinians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. The ministry does not say how many of the dead were fighters, though its data shows that more than half were women and children.
Ali Shaath heads the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), created as part of the ceasefire agreement. He announced last week that Rafah would reopen in both directions.
Israel said it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the crossing as part of its “limited reopening” once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.
His remains were brought back to Israel later on Monday.
A Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity that “estimates indicate that the Rafah crossing could be opened in both directions by the end of this week or early next week.”
A member of the NCAG told AFP that the technocratic committee would be responsible for sending lists of travelers’ names to the Israeli authorities for approval.
Outward travel will intially be limited to patients, the injured, students with university admission and visas, and holders of Egyptian citizenship or other nationalities and residency permits, the source said.
- ‘Burning with anticipation’ -
Gharam Al-Jamla, a displaced Palestinian living in a tent in southern Gaza, told AFP she counted on the crossing’s opening for her future.
“My dreams lie beyond the Rafah crossing. I applied for several scholarships to study journalism in English at universities in Turkiye. I received initial acceptance from two universities there,” the 18-year-old said.
She added she would then want to return to Gaza “to be one of its voices to convey the truth to the world.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, appealed for the full reopening of Rafah to allow the entry of unlimited aid and equipment for reconstruction.
“There are thousands of bodies under the rubble, including children, women and people with disabilities, which have not been recovered since the beginning of the war,” he said.
The civil defense is a rescue force operating under Hamas authority.
Mohammed Khaled, 18, said he wanted to move on from the war.
“I’m burning with anticipation,” he told AFP.
“I haven’t seen my mother and sisters for two years. My mother traveled for medical treatment, and they only allowed my sisters to accompany her.”
Khaled said he also hoped to be able to travel to have surgery for a shrapnel injury sustained during the war.
The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is the Palestinian territory’s only gateway to the outside world that does not lead to Israel and is a key entry point for both people and goods.
It has been closed since Israeli forces took control of it in May 2024, except for a limited reopening in early 2025, and other bids to reopen failed to materialize.
Following a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect in October, Rafah is expected to reopen for pedestrians, after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing.
“Opening the Rafah crossing means opening the door to life for me. I haven’t seen my wife and children for two years since they left at the beginning of the war and I was prevented from traveling,” said 48-year-old Mahmud Al-Natour, who hails from Gaza City.
“My children are growing up far away from me, and the years are passing by as if we are cut off from the world and life itself,” he told AFP.
Randa Samih, 48, also called the crossing “the lifeline of Gaza,” but is worried about whether she would be able to leave.
She had applied for an exit permit to get treatment for her injured back, which she fears might not be serious enough to be allowed out.
“There are tens of thousands of injuries in Gaza, most of them more serious than mine,” she said.
“We’ll die or our health will decline before we get to travel.”
- ‘Limited reopening’ -
Gaza, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before Hamas’s attack sparked the war.
Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage on October 7, 2023, in an attack that killed 1,221 others, most of them civilians.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 71,662 Palestinians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. The ministry does not say how many of the dead were fighters, though its data shows that more than half were women and children.
Ali Shaath heads the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), created as part of the ceasefire agreement. He announced last week that Rafah would reopen in both directions.
Israel said it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the crossing as part of its “limited reopening” once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.
His remains were brought back to Israel later on Monday.
A Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity that “estimates indicate that the Rafah crossing could be opened in both directions by the end of this week or early next week.”
A member of the NCAG told AFP that the technocratic committee would be responsible for sending lists of travelers’ names to the Israeli authorities for approval.
Outward travel will intially be limited to patients, the injured, students with university admission and visas, and holders of Egyptian citizenship or other nationalities and residency permits, the source said.
- ‘Burning with anticipation’ -
Gharam Al-Jamla, a displaced Palestinian living in a tent in southern Gaza, told AFP she counted on the crossing’s opening for her future.
“My dreams lie beyond the Rafah crossing. I applied for several scholarships to study journalism in English at universities in Turkiye. I received initial acceptance from two universities there,” the 18-year-old said.
She added she would then want to return to Gaza “to be one of its voices to convey the truth to the world.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, appealed for the full reopening of Rafah to allow the entry of unlimited aid and equipment for reconstruction.
“There are thousands of bodies under the rubble, including children, women and people with disabilities, which have not been recovered since the beginning of the war,” he said.
The civil defense is a rescue force operating under Hamas authority.
Mohammed Khaled, 18, said he wanted to move on from the war.
“I’m burning with anticipation,” he told AFP.
“I haven’t seen my mother and sisters for two years. My mother traveled for medical treatment, and they only allowed my sisters to accompany her.”
Khaled said he also hoped to be able to travel to have surgery for a shrapnel injury sustained during the war.
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