Israeli press review: Rebuilding challenges persist months after Iran war

Israel struggles to recover from Iran war

Five months after the end of the war with Iran, Israel is still grappling with the extensive damage caused during the 12 days of fighting.

According to TheMarker, around 700 Israelis lost their homes after Iranian missiles struck their buildings, yet state authorities are struggling to determine how to revive the destroyed properties.

Earlier this month, the government introduced a plan to demolish and rebuild damaged homes, allowing residents to either move into new apartments or sell them at their new value.

However, clashes between the government and ultra-Orthodox parties - who quit the coalition earlier this year over disagreements about the conscription of Haredi youth - have left the plan’s approval uncertain.

A Haifa resident whose building was hit by an Iranian missile told economic news outlet Calcalist that reconstruction is not progressing, and in the meantime, "there is looting". He added, "The damage didn’t end on the day the missile fell; it continues."

Difficulties are also affecting residents whose homes suffered partial damage. A Ramat Gan resident said, "It’s impossible to live somewhere else because, according to the Property Tax Authority, the building is considered habitable. Meanwhile, we are simply waiting."

Roughly 50,000 damage claims have been filed to the Property Tax Authority, 39,000 of them relating to home damage. Estimates published in Israeli media indicate that Iranian missile strikes caused damage totalling around five billion shekels.

Planned budget cuts for Palestinian citizens

A parliamentary debate was held on Wednesday over Israeli Social Equality Minister May Golan’s plan to cut state budgets allocated to the Palestinian community in Israel.

"We are facing two dangers: the budget cut for the current year and its implications for next year," warned MP Aida Touma-Sliman of the left-wing Hadash party during the debate.

In the past two years, Touma-Sliman said, "They do not transfer budgets, they prevent their use, and at the end of the year, they divert the funds to other ministries under the pretext of non-utilisation. This is theft in broad daylight."

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Earlier this month, Golan, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, announced plans to cancel a three billion shekel programme intended to reduce social gaps between Palestinians in Israel and the wider Jewish population.

According to Calcalist, Golan - who is a close ally of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir - plans to redirect most of the programme’s funds to the police, purportedly to combat rising crime within the Palestinian community.

Under Golan’s plan, hundreds of millions of shekels originally earmarked for building schools and kindergartens, public transport, infrastructure and housing schemes, worker training and other initiatives would instead go toward establishing police stations in Palestinian towns and other police activities.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel criticised the plan, calling it "an infringement on the right to equality and other fundamental rights of the Arab population.

"Diverting budgets intended for the welfare of Arab society to addressing crime is absurd," the Association added, "since if these plans come at the expense of one another, neither is expected to succeed."

Israel faces upper-class exodus

Earlier this month, Israeli media reported that nearly 200,000 citizens have left Israel since the outbreak of the war on Gaza in October 2023.

A new report by researchers at Tel Aviv University, published by Calcalist, indicates that a large percentage of these emigrants are young people from Israel’s higher socio-economic strata.

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Over the past year, nearly 900 doctors left Israel, along with more than 19,000 people with degrees and over 3,000 engineers. According to the report, 75 percent of all emigrants are under the age of 40.

"More hi-tech workers, managers, professionals and others in the top income deciles are leaving Israel," Calcalist reported.

"The loss of hundreds of doctors over just a few years is an alarming figure for a health system in a country like Israel, which already suffers from a severe shortage of physicians."

The study estimates that the state lost about 1.5 billion shekels in personal tax revenue this past year due to this trend, not including other losses caused by emigration.

If the current pace continues, the report warns, Israel could face "severe macroeconomic consequences due to the loss of essential human capital".

A separate report on Israel’s hi-tech sector found a similarly significant wave of departures. In the past year alone, more than 8,000 tech workers emigrated abroad, primarily to the US, Canada and Germany.