The government approved transferring NIS 2.6 billion to the Defense Ministry for “urgent and essential defense procurement” amid Operation Roaring Lion in an overnight decision on Saturday.
The funds were transferred for classified equipment, the government said, citing an “urgent and immediate need” to provide an operational response to the ongoing war.
NIS 1.5 billion was allocated from the 2026 state budget, which is expected to be approved in the Knesset with a final vote by the end of the month.
An additional NIS 1.1 billion was allocated from government ministries' budgets.
According to the proposal, if the 2026 state budget is approved by the end of the month, the decision to allocate the funds from government ministries will be canceled, and the sum will instead come from a special budgetary clause within the Defense Ministry’s budget.
The cabinet ministers approved the decision in a conference call.
The addition to the defense budget followed last Tuesday’s decision to update the 2026 state budget. The government unanimously voted to add about NIS 32 billion to the state budget due to the war.
To finance the war, a 3% across-the-board cut would be applied to the budgets of all government ministries, the Finance Ministry said last week after the vote.
The update was required to finance both Operation Roaring Lion and the broader campaign against Iran and Hezbollah, it said.
The updated defense budget totals about NIS 143 billion after Tuesday's additions, the Finance Ministry said. The overall state budget is now about NIS 699 billion, and the updated 2026 deficit ceiling will be 5.1% of GDP, the Finance Ministry said.
The defense budget was NIS 65 billion before the October 7 massacre in 2023, it said.
Gov't reduce budgets in education, health, welfare, transport
The cuts to government ministries had reduced their budgets by hundreds of millions of shekels, including the Education, Health, Welfare and Social Affairs, and Transportation ministries.
During the vote to raise the budget last Tuesday, nearly NIS 6 billion in coalition funds were approved for the 2026 state budget, with hundreds of millions of shekels directed to haredi (ultra-Orthodox) institutions as part of the proposal.
Millions of shekels were also allocated for settlements in Judea and Samaria.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote on increasing the state budget, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war with Iran was “a costly campaign that requires a special budget with the addition of tens of billions of shekels for the war effort.”
The 2026 state budget passed its first reading in the Knesset in January. It must still pass its final votes before the end of March. If that does not happen, the Knesset will automatically dissolve, triggering early elections.
Discussions in the Knesset Finance Committee about the state budget have been ongoing in recent days.
On Sunday, Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak, a member of the Knesset Finance Committee, criticized the government for failing to create a compensation framework for businesses or employees affected by the current war.
“No discussions on the issue will take place in the Finance Committee this week either, meaning that there will not be a framework [for compensation] even in an additional week,” he told the committee.
“Millions of Israelis are in complete economic uncertainty,” Beliak said. “What has been approved so far? NIS 6 billion in coalition funds during wartime. For that, the finance minister had time.”