Israel increased military spending by 65 percent in 2024
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says that global military expenditure rose to $2.72 trillion last year, in the “steepest year-on-year rise since at least the end of the Cold War”.
Israel’s military expenditure reached $46.5bn in 2024, a 65 percent increase on 2023, and “the steepest annual increase since the Six-Day War in 1967”, SIPRI said.
Israel’s “military burden rose to 8.8 percent of GDP, the second highest in the world,” SIPRI added.
Lebanon’s military spending also rose by 58 percent in 2024, although its overall spending was much lower than Israel’s at $635m.
By contrast, SIPRI found that Iran’s military spending fell by 10 percent in real terms to $7.9bn in 2024, in part due to sanctions.
“Despite widespread expectations that many Middle Eastern countries would increase their military spending in 2024, major rises were limited to Israel and Lebanon,” said Zubaida Karim, a researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing a ‘new inferno’: ICRC director
Pierre Krahenbuhl, the director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), made the comments at the annual Global Security Forum in Doha.
“Gaza is experiencing and enduring … death, injury, multiple displacements, amputations, separation, disappearance, starvation and denial of aid and dignity on a massive scale, and just when the all-important ceasefire led people to believe they had survived the worst, a new inferno was unleashed,” he said.
“This includes the trauma of families of Israeli hostages who face a never-ending nightmare, and of the families of Palestinian prisoners. Over 400 aid workers and 1,000 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza, including 36 from the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,” he said.
Israel kills 71 Palestinians in the past 24 hours: Ministry
Gaza’s Health Ministry has just issued its daily statistical report on Palestinian casualties in Israel’s war on the enclave.
- In the past 24 hours, Gaza hospitals have reported 71 people killed by Israeli forces, including 14 bodies recovered from under the rubble, and 153 injured.
- Israel has killed at least 52,314 Palestinians since launching its military offensive on October 7, 2023. A further 17,792 people have been injured.
- Since resuming its offensive on March 18, Israel has killed at least 2,222 people.
Palestinian girls look at the rubble of the Abou Mahadi family home destroyed in Israeli strikes in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on April 28
Ambulances run out of fuel in southern Gaza: Civil Defence
The Palestinian Civil Defence says ambulances in southern Gaza have run out of fuel, with eight out of 12 vehicles out of order amid an ongoing Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid.
In a statement, it warned that with only four vehicles, its responses to residents will be limited, “threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelters”.
“We hold the Israeli occupation responsible for the worsening suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing war and the continued imposition of the blockade,” the statement said.
“We renew our call to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and international organisations to take immediate action to open the Gaza Strip crossings, allow the entry of fuel, and supply institutions and equipment working in the humanitarian field.”
