Israel records unprecedented damages due to Gaza war: Official

The Israeli damages recorded during the war on the besieged Gaza Strip is six times greater than the damages recorded during the 2006 Lebanon War, the Director of the Israeli Tax Authority, Shai Aharonovitz, revealed on Tuesday, local media reported.

The Israeli Walla website said Aharonovitz has revealed disturbing data regarding the extent of the Israeli damages due to the Gaza war and the recorded compensation claims.

Speaking at an event, he said, “The war has posed a very complex challenge to dealing with direct damages, which we have never seen before.”

“The damage is now six times greater than the Second Lebanon War (2006), and about half a million [compensation] claims have been filed, so far.”

The Israeli official estimated that requests for compensation for indirect damages would exceed 700,000, and urged army recruits to file them, adding: “We have never been in a situation like this before.”

For his part, Ilan Pelto, CEO of the Federation of Public Enterprises, has criticised expanding the military budget during war time, saying, “If we get into a state of hysteria and give in to pressure from the army and the budgetary framework is breached beyond what is needed once, it will have serious consequences, both in taxation and in the field of welfare.”

On 19 February, data issued by the Israeli Bureau of Statistics showed that the Israeli economy contracted by 20 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023 year-on-year, in light of the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.

The Bureau said the contraction was driven by the deterioration of all sectors, “at a time when the level of investment declined by 70 per cent”.

Private consumption contracted by 27 per cent, while public consumption contracted by approximately 90 per cent during the same period, on an annual basis, according to the same source.

“The economy’s contraction in the fourth quarter of 2023 was directly affected by the outbreak of war in Gaza … The composition of the gross domestic product changed after the widespread mobilisation of reserve soldiers, the payment of alternative housing costs and the labour shortage in construction,” the Bureau said.

Since 7 October, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands of civilians, most of them children and women and causing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction to infrastructure.

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