Israeli Knesset debates 2026 draft budget before vote
Israel’s Knesset is expected to give a preliminary vote on this year’s draft state budget today or tomorrow morning following a debate in the chamber. Lawmakers must pass the budget by the end of March, or the country will head to snap elections before the scheduled October vote.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped people “act sensibly” to avoid early elections.
“We are in a very sensitive situation, and I think the last thing we need right now is elections,” he told a news conference. “We’ll have elections later on this year, but I think it’s a mistake to have them now, and I hope that people understand that and act sensibly.”
Netanyahu blames Biden for some Israeli soldiers’ deaths in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed the previous US administration of President Joe Biden for causing the deaths of Israeli soldiers in Gaza after Washington paused a weapons shipment during the war.
Israel paid “very heavy prices” regarding the killing of its troops, and one reason for that was “at a certain stage we didn’t have enough ammunition”, Netanyahu told a press conference on Tuesday.
“Heroes fell” because they didn’t have the firepower they needed, and “part of that absent ammunition was because of the embargo”, he said, referring to a brief suspension of “one [US] shipment of high payload munitions” in 2024.
Biden made the decision to pause the shipment after Netanyahu ignored international warnings not to invade southern Rafah.
Amos Hochstein, a former Biden aide, denounced the comments, saying Israel’s only response to the United States for its support during Israel’s war on Gaza should be “thank you”.
Albania’s PM defends Israel, blames Gaza crisis solely on Hamas
In an address to the Knesset, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has shielded Israel from accountability, pinning Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe entirely on Hamas while ignoring the killing of more than 71,000 Palestinians in Israel’s ongoing genocide.
Rama opened his speech by expressing goodwill towards Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, and highlighting Albania’s longstanding solidarity with the Jewish people. He spoke of Albania’s historical support for Jews, saying the country and its people stood “as few others did for the Jewish people” and deserved recognition from Israel.
Drawing a parallel with Albania’s past, Rama said international criticism often misidentifies the source of Gaza’s suffering, arguing that many observers “mistook the finger for what it was pointing at” and failed to see that “the jailer of Gaza is Hamas, no one else but Hamas”.
