Unprecedented increase in Israel’s military budget

Israel’s Ministry of War announced today (Friday) that the regime’s military budget for 2026 will reach 112 billion shekels, equivalent to $34.6 billion—about $4 billion more than the current year’s military budget and the highest figure since the establishment of the Zionist regime.

This increase comes despite the fact that in 2025 the Israeli cabinet had already approved a budget of 619 billion shekels as the “largest financial bill” in its history, with the military sector’s share recorded at 109.8 billion shekels, or about $30 billion.

According to the office of the Israeli minister of war, this sharp rise is part of a broader plan by the Israeli cabinet to increase military spending by 350 billion shekels—equivalent to $107 billion—over the next ten years.

This plan will raise Israel’s military expenditures by about 70 percent compared to the pre-war period.

Military officials say the budget increase is necessary to rebuild the Israeli army, which, after the longest war in the regime’s history since the beginning of the Arab–Israeli conflict, is facing personnel shortages, equipment deficiencies, and an urgent need to modernize its operational units.

Despite this, Israel’s Ministry of Finance has warned about the economic consequences of the plan, stating that the rapid rise in military spending could increase the budget deficit and place additional pressure on the economy.

Estimates show that implementation of this program will impose an additional annual financial burden of about $11 billion on the Israeli cabinet’s budget—a burden that some experts have described as “high-risk” under Israel’s current stagflationary conditions.