By Abdelraouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM (AA) - The Gaza war has cost the Israeli economy over $67.3 billion, Israeli economists said on Thursday.
"The war has already cost the Israeli economy more than NIS 250 billion ($67.3 billion), and the defense establishment wants an annual increase of at least NIS 20 billion ($5.39 billion)," Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, the former CEO of Israel’s Bank Leumi, told Israeli Channel 12.
"The deficit is much larger, we have evacuees, wounded, and many economic needs that are not even counted in the cost of the war,” she added.
Jacob Frenkel, a former governor of Israel’s central bank, said the country’s budget deficit reached 8.1% last July.
"The most urgent and important task is to deal with the deficit,” he said.
“Israel started the year 2023 without a deficit and since then the situation has deteriorated. By the end of July, the deficit reached 8.1%, or about NIS 155 billion ($41.8 billion). It must be covered."
Uri Levin, a former CEO of Israel Discount Bank, said Israel will not be able to rehabilitate its economy without winning back the trust of international investors.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.
The Israeli onslaught has since killed more than 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,400 others, according to local health authorities.
Over 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara