Israel's Netanyahu Proposes To Create Security, COVID-19 Cabinets

TEL AVIV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th May, 2020) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for the creation of a security cabinet as well as a cabinet to fight COVID-19.

"I request that we take two of the most important and immediate steps today, which we announced in advance: One, to form the Security Cabinet and two, to form the Corona Cabinet," Netanyahu said during a cabinet meeting in the morning, as quoted by the government's website.

He justified his proposal by invoking the alleged threat of Iran.

"You certainly heard the ruler of Iran, [Sayyid Ali Hosseini] Khamenei, threatening our destruction. Whoever threatens us with destruction will certainly not succeed, but places himself in great danger. I would like to reiterate that our policy is to oppose Iranian aggression in every place and to oppose Iran's attempts to entrench in Syria. We are active constantly and, of course, we oppose Iran's attempt to place or develop in Syria weapons to serve its proxies and forces that could endanger the State of Israel" the prime minister added.

The authorities also need to deal with the economic consequences of the coronavirus epidemic, including job losses among the population, he said.

"Therefore, I have instructed to increase the economic plan to NIS 100 billion [$28.3 billion]. We will add another NIS 14 billion [$3.9 billion]. We will invest the additional budget in - inter alia - a plan to encourage employment, a fund to assist businesses that cannot return to regular activity in the near future, and plans to accelerate the economy. We have also increased the loan fund for small and intermediate businesses from NIS 8 billion [$2.2 billion] to NIS 14 billion and we have expanded the sections regarding assistance so that we will be able to distribute the money to whoever needs it," he stated.

Israel has 16,712 confirmed coronavirus cases, with the death toll of 279, according to Johns Hopkins University database.