From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Government spent more than NIS 90 billion on war effort in 2025, fueling rising debt
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel
Israel spent about NIS 91 billion ($29 billion) on military, defense, and civil needs in 2025 to support the war effort, which increased government borrowing and fueled the country’s debt burden, according to a first estimate by the Finance Ministry’s accountant general.
The ratio of public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.9% to 68.6% at the end of last year, from 67.7% in 2024. Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio is still lower than the euro bloc’s 87.8%, 125.1% in the US, and 229.6% in Japan, the ministry says, citing International Monetary Fund data.
The government budget deficit in 2025 was 4.7% of GDP, amounting to approximately NIS 98.6 billion ($31.5 billion).
In 2025, Israel raised NIS 207 billion ($66 billion) in government debt. From the outbreak of war with the Hamas terror group on October 7, 2023, until the ceasefire in October 2025, the state raised a total of NIS 524 billion ($167 billion) in government debt.
“Over the past two years, we have raised significant amounts of debt, and the high and stable demand [for the country’s debt] is a reflection of the markets’ confidence in the Israeli economy,” says Accountant General Yali Rothenberg. “Once conditions stabilize, steps must be taken to restore the fiscal path in a way that will enable the debt-to-GDP ratio to return to a declining trajectory.”
The Times of Israel Community.