Netanyahu details price freezes in bid to combat inflation

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces the government’s triage plan to combat cost of living concerns, promising to freeze or reduce price hikes affecting core utilities, fuel and municipal property taxes.

“These steps will immediately cheapen the monthly expenses of every household in Israel,” Netanyahu says, adding that because these are the basic input expenses that affect the whole economy, reducing their costs would be like “putting sticks in the wheel of inflation.”

Alongside Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu tells journalists that his government’s four-point plan will: institute a one-year freeze in municipal property tax rates; rollback the January fuel price hike to reduce gas costs by NIS 0.10 a liter, reduce January’s 8% electricity price hike to only 2.5%; and similarly, reduce the planned 3.5% water price increase to only 1%.

Netanyahu promises that further initiatives, including addressing the housing crisis and fulfilling an election promise to provide early childhood education, will be discussed in the upcoming budget.