The Israeli Ministry of Finance said on Sunday that Israel recorded a budget deficit of 16.6 billion shekels ($4.5 billion) last November, noting that this jump in costs was caused by financing the ongoing two-month-old aggression on the Gaza Strip.
She added that as a percentage of GDP, the deficit rose over the previous 12 months to 3.4% in November from 2.6% in October.
A source in the ministry said that the deficit for 2023 will end at about 4% of gross domestic product.
The ministry indicated that revenues decreased by 15.6% last month, partly due to tax deferrals as a result of the war that began on October 7th.
Last month, the Israeli Ministry of Finance reported that the cost of the war on the Gaza Strip in the first three weeks had cost the general budget 30 billion shekels ($7.5 billion), which does not include the losses of small and medium-sized commercial interests, and the direct and indirect damages incurred by economic activity.To an Israeli after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation launched by the Palestinian resistance led by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). .
The head of the Finance Budget Division, Yogev Gerdos, revealed at the time that fighting expenses per day cost about one billion shekels ($250 million), and the total spending would increase as the fighting continued.
The Treasury estimated that the damage to the economy’s GDP amounts to about 10 billion shekels per month from the fighting ($2.5 billion), meaning that growth in Israel will slow significantly for the remainder of the year.
Gerdos said that the costs of the current war on Gaza are enormous compared to previous rounds of combat, and “we need to act responsibly. It seems that the war will continue for a long time, and we do not want to receive a financial and economic blow as well.”