Netanyahu defends his 2025 budget as “difficult but necessary” while the opposition sees it as “reckless”

MADRID Nov. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Government of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, approved this Friday the state budget for the year 2025, stating that it was a “difficult but necessary” decision, while the opposition has described it as “reckless” within the framework of the offensive launched against the Gaza Strip following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.

“We have met to prepare an important and difficult, but necessary, budget in a year of war,” Netanyahu said after accepting next year’s accounts, guaranteeing that he will present “if necessary” a complementary budget to “add to the defense budget the reinforcement components” before it is approved in January.

Israeli opposition leader and the country’s former prime minister, Yair Lapid, has accused the prime minister of giving his blessing to a “reckless budget” that will increase costs for Israeli families.

“The Netanyahu government has approved a wasteful budget. It will increase the spending of each family in Israel by 20,000 shekels (about 4,900 euros) per year and, at the same time, distribute billions of shekels to ten unnecessary government ministries. They have lost the Shame,” Lapid said in a publication on his account on the social network X.

For his part, the opposition and former member of the war cabinet, Benny Gantz, has criticized the Government for making a budget aimed at its own benefit and not that of the Israeli population.

“The coalition funds, as they are called, are intended to maintain Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition. Anyone who supported this budget: The mark of Cain will accompany them for the rest of their life. Shame,” said the leader of the National Unity party through the same platform.