The enormous costs of Israel’s multi-front war and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to turn his country into a “super-Sparta” of the Middle East are driving up the defence budget and raising fears of cutbacks in education and healthcare.

The total cost of the series of interconnected regional conflicts that began with Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 stood at 405 billion shekels ($138bn) as of late April, according to the governor of the Bank of Israel, Amir Yaron.

“That’s a huge figure, more than 17 per cent of GDP,” he said during a recent economic conference in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.

Following the adoption of the 2026 budget in late March, the government noted the defence ministry’s budget had more than doubled since October 2023. To support the war effort, the government borrowed heavily on international markets in 2024 and 2025.

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