By Ted Belman
If the IDF had taken Gaza, Ya’alon said, rockets would still be fired from there today, and holding the Gaza Strip would cost Israel 10 billion shekels ($2.5 billion) a year.
The squabble over the cost of the military campaign during Operation Protective Edge is intensifying. Contrary to Defense Ministry figures indicating a sum of NIS 9-10 billion, Finance Ministry officials claimed on Monday that the cost of the military campaign amounted to just NIS 6.5 billion, based on calculations made by Accountant General Michal Abadi-Boiangiu.
It appears from these numbers that the cost of “mowing the lawn” every few years is less than the cost of reoccupying Gaza.
What is not factored in is the annual costs of defending Israel from attacks from unoccupied Gaza. Obviously we should be looking at the net costs of occupying Gaza.
Nor is the traumatization of the Israelis during each Gaza war factored in.
Protective edge cost 73 Israeli lives. Occupying Gaza will also cost lives as occupying Lebanon did (6/year).
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