Israel redirects funds to security forces and approves new West Bank settlement budget

The Israeli government approved a reallocation of roughly 497 million shekels from the five‑year Arab community development plan to the national security agency Shabak and the police. Shabak will receive about 364.5 million shekels to create a unit focused on weapons smuggling, while the police will get around 132.4 million shekels for a crime‑fighting unit in Arab towns, along with 130 new jobs and a fixed annual budget of 35 million shekels. Critics say the cuts could harm vocational training, employment centres, sports facilities and innovation projects that were meant to reduce economic gaps for Arab citizens.

In a separate decision, Israel’s small cabinet secretly approved a 1.3 billion‑shekel budget to build new settlements in the occupied West Bank. The plan includes the establishment of dozens of new settlement sites and the development of infrastructure, roads and security facilities, aiming to solidify Israeli presence and limit prospects for a future Palestinian state. The funding is part of a broader investment of about 19.8 billion shekels in settlement expansion, covering tens of thousands of new housing units across more than 300 settlement points.