US may cut aid to Israel — the army will have to pay itself
Israel may face the need to independently cover its defense costs after the current US military aid agreement expires in 2028. Military analyst Alon Ben-David writes in Maariv that the next aid package could be significantly smaller, and Prime Minister Netanyahu previously stated readiness to receive only half of the previous amount.
Israel may face the need to independently cover a significant portion of its defense costs after the current US military aid agreement expires. As military analyst Alon Ben-David writes in Maariv, the current ten-year US aid program ends in 2028. Over the past decade, Israel has received about $33 billion from the US. Ben-David claims that Israeli representatives interacting with the Trump administration considered it possible to reach a new agreement of comparable scale. However, about a year ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel's readiness to receive roughly half the previous amount of aid. According to the analyst, this weakened the ability to secure continued funding at the previous level. The problem is exacerbated by the enormous costs accumulated over nearly three years of combat operations. According to Maariv, the Israeli Air Force has conducted as many sorties as it usually would in nine years, and ammunition consumption is comparable to the volume over three decades before the war. The IDF maintains about 53,000 reservists daily, and a month of their deployment costs approximately 2.1 billion shekels. Additional strain comes from the need to maintain forces in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria.