The Israeli cabinet on Friday voted to approve a two-year budget for 2023 and 2024 readying it for a Knesset vote.
The budget for 2023 will stand at NIS 484 billion ($131.3 billion) — an $8.55 billion increase from last year — before climbing to NIS 514 billion ($139.5 billion) in 2024.
One of the budget’s biggest beneficiaries was the Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir whose office is set to receive a NIS 484 billion boost ($2.44 billion).
He had originally demanded a NIS 14 billion bump ($3.8 billion) and boycotted a meeting on the matter earlier this week as negotiations hit a blip.
The extra money will be used to recruit thousands of additional police officers over 1200 new prison guards and hundreds of firefighters.
It will also allow a pay raise for police officers and prison guards in the coming year in addition to the establishment of a national guard.
A few days after Ben-Gvir took office at the end of last year he threatened to tighten restrictions on Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
During a visit to Israel’s Nafha Prison Ben-Gvir threatened to take action “to ensure that the conditions of Palestinian prisoners are not improved.”
He also said he would pursue plans to pass a law that would impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners involved in anti-occupation operations.
During the past week prisoners in several sections decided to go on disobedience steps and employed a strategy of non-cooperation with prison authorities as a form of protest.
The Palestinian prisoners are readying themselves for organized disobedience which they anticipate will escalate into a full-scale hunger strike.
