The cost of direct damages resulting from the Second Lebanon War amounted to $2.8 billion (Reuters)
An Israeli official estimated - on Tuesday - that the damage resulting from the war on the Gaza Strip is six times greater than that caused by the second war on Lebanon in 2006.
The Israeli Walla website quoted the director of the Israeli Tax Authority, Shai Aharonovitch, as saying that the damage so far is equivalent to 6 times the Second Lebanon War.
He added, "We will reach about 700,000 claims for compensation for indirect damages. Half a million claims have already been submitted. We have never been in a situation like this before. We are trying to pay as soon as possible, but the number of workers in the Tax Authority is limited."
Aharonovitch did not provide estimates of the extent of the damage expected or resulting from the 2006 war.
However, according to government data, the total number of damages reported by the Israelis in the 2006 war amounted to approximately 100,000 compensation requests.
Also, according to Israeli government data issued in 2007, the cost of direct damages resulting from the Second Lebanon War amounted to $2.8 billion.
Aharonovitch was speaking at the annual IPO conference of the Federation of Public Companies at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
He said during the conference that the war posed a very complex challenge to deal with direct damage, as we had never seen before.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of victims, most of them children and women, massive infrastructure destruction and a humanitarian catastrophe, which led to Israel being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide.
Source: Anadolu Agency