The IDF lost the opportunity to purchase 12 Apache attack helicopters from the American company Boeing due to the lack of a defense budget.
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According to a report on Channel 12, the production line of 12 helicopters at Boeing was intended for Israel, but since the money did not pass within the required time window, these helicopters will likely be sold to the next country in line after Israel.
Without extraordinary intervention, the new combat helicopters will arrive in Israel with a delay of up to three years. This is exactly what happened with the new American tankers that the IDF purchased from the US, which only recently landed here, and now it is happening again.
This turns the shortage in the defense budget from a budgetary conflict with the Treasury into a problem that directly affects the IDF's force building.
Because the government has not approved the required addition to the defense budget for months, the IDF's force building has slowed, and there is concern that it may come to a halt. For example, the IDF is already warning that if the addition does not arrive soon, the restoration of tanks and armored personnel carriers damaged in the war to serviceability will also be halted, and some of the munitions production lines will be damaged.
A senior security source told Channel 12: "We cannot sign contracts and acquire equipment. This is happening in a highly volatile region and an arms race with our rivals. The army needs to be ready at any moment, and this will not happen. There is a price for these decisions.".
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned opposition leader Yair Lapid yesterday for a security update meeting, to which the Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance Michal Abadi and the head of the IDF Planning Department Hedi Zilberman were also summoned. Netanyahu asked Lapid to cooperate in increasing the defense budget, but Lapid demanded that the money be taken from the coalition funds transferred to the Haredi parties.
