Knesset panel says northern communities have received only 20% of funds earmarked for bomb shelters

By Ariela Karmel

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13 April 2026, 7:51 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

A Knesset panel says that only 20 percent of the funds allocated to build bomb shelters for 21 communities within 1–5 kilometers of the northern border have been disbursed, leaving the majority of eligible residents without shelter, amid the ongoing war with Hezbollah in Lebanon which has battered northern communities.

During a discussion held by the Special Committee for Strengthening and Developing the Negev and Galilee on protection gaps in the north, Committee Chair MK Oded Forer from the right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beytenu says that data from the defense ministry shows that NIS 900 million ($295 million) earmarked to help residents build protected spaces in Israel’s north have not been transferred.

“The government of Israel is consciously forsaking the residents of northern Israel completely,” Forer says.

“We feel that the distance from [Kibbutz] Dan and Dafna to Jerusalem is greater than the distance between Israel and Australia. Forty percent of the houses along the fence are not fortified, and I ask, when will every resident of the confrontation line have a wall that will separate them from death?” says Mateh Asher Regional Council Chair Moshe Davidovich, who also heads the Confrontation Line Forum.

A defense ministry official tells lawmakers that the government transferred NIS 868 million ($285 million) in 2024 to help communities within 1–5 kilometers of the border build 10,000 safe rooms, but only 278 have been completed.

This is in part because the program requires residents to manage construction themselves, in contrast to communities living less than one kilometer from the border, where shelters are built and provided by the state.

What is more, Forer says the funds fall well short of actual costs, with the state providing about NIS 130,000 ($42,600) toward a safe room estimated by the Housing Ministry to cost roughly NIS 220,000 ($72,000), forcing residents to pay the difference.

“The method by which people think that we will build 10,000 protected spaces but only provide the citizens with 60% of the budget does not work,” he says, demanding that the government shift construction to state contractors, as it does for communities closest to the border.