Iranian Attack: 5 billion shekels in a single night

Col. (Res.) Ram Aminach, the former economic advisor to the Chief of Staff, estimated that the night of defense against the Iranian attack cost the security system between 4 to 5 billion shekels.

“If we are talking about ballistic missiles that need to be intercepted with the Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be shot down with other missiles, and UAVs, which we mainly bring down with planes – it talks about 3.5 million dollars for an Arrow missile, a million dollars for a Magic Wand or David’s Sling, and various other costs for planes,” Aminach said in an interview with Ynet.

He also noted that Iran invested much less economically in the attack. “For the Iranians, it costs less than 10 percent of what it costs us to stop it. If we look into the future, in a year, two years, or five years, they can also conduct 50 such attacks, and you want to be ready for the number of attacks. So, we need to try to understand how much defense we need. Let’s say if the IDF’s net budget in 2023 was 60 billion shekels, with less than double that you have no chance of reaching the required quantities”.

Yoel Neveh, the former Chief Economist at the Finance Ministry, argued that a distinction should be made between a pinpoint attack and the full picture. “This year it’s a one-time expense. The implications of what was said earlier, to increase the defense budget permanently by 60 billion shekels, which is something like more than 3% of the output, has very heavy implications for the Israeli economy. It might lead to a situation where we might not succeed in funding it, and our interest expenses would significantly increase because the debt will grow to very large levels”.

“Israel’s national resilience is indeed based on technological capabilities, but the army is primarily based on a growing and active economy. Such a large additional burden of security expenses over a long period may also harm our growth potential”, he concluded.