Recovering Netanyahu gets up from hospital to rally support for Israel budget

1/1/2025 18:13

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got up from his hospital bed to call on unruly coalition partners to fall in line and back his government's 2025 budget after hardline rebels threatened to pull support for the bill.



Netanyahu, recovering from prostate surgery, came to the Knesset against the recommendation of his doctors to ensure the passing of legislation aimed at increasing state revenues after the far-right public security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and ultra-Orthodox parties said they might vote against the law or abstain.

The bill, a wartime austerity package of tax hikes and spending cuts, passed narrowly but the opposition was another sign of ever-widening cracks in Netanyahu's coalition, the furthest right in Israel's history.



In an initial vote earlier this month, Israeli lawmakers narrowly approved the budget bill despite a rebellion by coalition partners demanding he fire Israel's attorney general.



"I expect all the members of the coalition, including Minister Ben-Gvir, to stop rattling the coalition and endangering the existence of a right-wing government," Netanyahu said on Tuesday.