By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Iranian authorities on Tuesday hinted that the country’s military has proposed to triple its annual budget, as tension with arch-rival Israel increases, a development that has seen tit-for-tat missile exchange between the two nations.
At a news conference in Tehran, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said the move would see “a significant increase of more than 200 percent in the country’s military budget”.
She however did not elaborate or disclose any figure.
According to a think tank group, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Iran’s military spending in 2023 stood at about $10.3 billion.
The proposed budget will be debated, with lawmakers expected to finalise it in March.
Iran and Israel on Monday accused each other of endangering Middle East peace in a heated exchange at a UN meeting.
It came days after Israel carried out strikes on Iran in response to an October 1 missile barrage that the Islamic Republic launched against Israel.
The Iranian army reported four soldiers killed and damage to “radar systems”.
Iran’s October 1 strike, involving 200 missiles, was in retaliation for attacks that killed the leaders of the Iran-backed groups Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as one of its own commanders.
“All efforts have been made to meet the country’s defence needs and special attention has been paid to this issue,” the government spokeswoman Mohajerani said.
Heritage Times HT reports that a drone was launched at Netanyahu’s residence on October 19, a day after Hamas confirmed that its chief Yahya Sinwar was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.
Read Also: Israel: Netanyahu Says Hezbollah’s Assassination Attempt On Him “Grave Mistake”
“A UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) was launched toward the prime minister’s residence in Caesarea. The prime minister and his wife were not at the location, and there were no injuries in the incident,” Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
The Israeli military said three drones had been fired from Lebanon and two had been intercepted.
Sinwar was allegedly the architect of the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel in which over 1,200 Israelis were killed and over 250 taken hostage.
Sinwar, who was killed on October 16, took over as the chief of Hamas after his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran’s capital, Tehran.
