Israel’s NIS 1.6 Billion Gaza Aid Budget: What It Covers
Israel’s cabinet approved NIS 1.6 billion for humanitarian aid to Gaza in its 2025 budget, less than three months after the Prime Minister’s Office and the finance minister’s office said Israel does not fund that aid.
The money was part of a NIS 31 billion increase to the 2025 state budget, which the government approved on the evening of Tuesday, August 19, 2025, and which went mostly to defense. The Times of Israel put the Gaza aid line at about $473 million at the time. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the money goes “to the aid centers, to the residents of Gaza.” The increase still needed Knesset approval, and the bill passed its first reading on September 11.
Officials first denied funding
On June 4, Kan reported that the government had approved a transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels in early May, listed under the “defense establishment” but meant for the Gaza aid mechanism. The Prime Minister’s Office and the finance minister’s office told Kan that the State of Israel does not fund humanitarian aid to Gaza’s residents.
The August budget put the aid on the record. The Times of Israel noted that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had opposed any aid to Gaza before acknowledging that he had advanced the transfer of billions of shekels toward it.
Ministers clash over the cost
The decision split the government. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called it “a shame and disgrace” and said the aid was paid for “at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer.” Education Minister Yoav Kisch accused Smotrich of preferring “the children of Gaza over the children of Israel.” Smotrich replied that “populist ministers” were more interested in “hurling personal insults and generating headlines.”
Outside the coalition, Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman said the government was “stealing from the citizens and paying taxes to Hamas.” The increase came with a 3.35 percent across the board cut to ministry budgets from the start of the following year. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called the government’s cuts to health, education and welfare “disgraceful.”
What the money was meant for
Israeli officials use “aid centers” for the distribution sites of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US backed organization that began handing out food in southern Gaza on May 26, 2025. Israel’s Foreign Ministry described the mechanism as a way to deliver supplies directly to civilians while keeping them from Hamas, a terrorist organization.
The United Nations opposed the model, arguing that it gave Israel control over food distribution and could force Palestinians to be displaced. GHF announced the end of its mission on November 24, 2025, saying it had delivered 187 million free meals, and said it would remain a registered NGO.
How aid reaches Gaza now
Delivery changed after the ceasefire that began on October 10, 2025, in which Israel committed to allow 600 trucks of aid into Gaza each day. An Associated Press analysis of figures from COGAT, the Israeli defense body that coordinates civilian affairs in Gaza, found an average of 459 trucks a day between October 12 and December 7, about 77 percent of the target. The UN, which excludes some bilateral aid from its count, reported about 113 trucks a day offloaded at the crossings.
In January 2026 the UN humanitarian office OCHA reported that more than 164,000 metric tons of aid had been collected from Gaza’s crossings in three months, with 55 percent of offloaded aid arriving through the Israel route, including Ashdod port and Ben Gurion airport. OCHA did not say who paid for the supplies.
What the budget does not show
Israel News Pulse could not independently find information about how the NIS 1.6 billion was divided between GHF and other aid. On November 6, 2025, the Movement for Freedom of Information, an Israeli nonprofit that files freedom of information requests, filed a court petition against the Defense Ministry for details of the aid funding after about four months without a reply. The Finance Ministry told the group that the matter is the Defense Ministry’s responsibility.
