Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged that a war with Iran would carry a heavy financial cost, saying the government will need to allocate a special wartime budget worth tens of billions of shekels.
In a joint statement with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said the government considered the confrontation unavoidable but warned that the financial burden would be significant.
“There was absolutely no doubt that we had to fight this battle, and we are doing everything we can with our soldiers and pilots,” Netanyahu said, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
“But there is a major obstacle: it is costly, extremely costly. Therefore, we are required to allocate a special budget during the war, amounting to tens of billions of shekels, to support the defence budget and the war effort,” he added.
