Palestine Economy Portal

The Israeli occupation state recorded an accumulated financial deficit since the beginning of this year, a record in the history of the Israeli Occupation, amounting to 87.5 billion shekels. The deficit in the same period last year was 29.2 billion shekels. The government's fiscal deficit in August reached 17.3 billion shekels, while this deficit in the same month of last year was 5.2 billion shekels, according to data published by the Israeli Finance Ministry yesterday, Sunday.

The accumulated fiscal deficit during the last 12 months accounted for 8.1% of the gross national product. Income from the added-value tax reduced the deficit slightly over the past month, due to the high volume of consumption.

The spending of the Israeli government increased dramatically due to the Corona crisis, especially as a result of spending on strengthening the health system, supporting commercial interests and independents, paying unemployment benefits to those dismissed from work and those who were taken on unpaid leave, and grants to citizens.

The data of the Ministry of Finance indicated that the government's spending last August amounted to 44.1 billion and 292.9 billion shekels since the beginning of this year, including 35.5 billion to confront the Corona crisis. It is expected that the volume of government spending will increase significantly until the middle of next year, due to the payment of donations, compensation for losses to commercial interests, and unemployment allocations. The size of government debt interest reached 20.6 billion shekels.

It is noteworthy that the Israeli government is managing its financial affairs without approving a budget for the current year. The government is considering, during its meeting, tomorrow, to add 11 billion shekels to the unapproved budget. Spending is carried out according to last year's budget, and is divided into 12 months.

The newspaper "Yediot Aharonot" reported that 3.3 billion shekels of the increase in the budget, which is expected to be approved tomorrow, will be allocated to the security apparatus, and one billion shekels will be allocated to raise the disability allowance. 400 million shekels will be transferred to the Jewish seminaries, and one billion shekels will be transferred to the education and health systems.