The Israeli cabinet has voted via telephone to dissolve the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and reallocate its budget to the reconstruction of communities near the Gaza border, Times of Israel reports.
The head of the ministry, Galit Distel-Atbaryan, stepped down from her position five days after the start of the war, “failing to release any meaningful explanatory content as Israel suffered the largest single-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust and entered what is expected to be a protracted war with Hamas,” as the Israeli media outlet writes.
The office’s unused budget of 9.4 million shekels for 2023 and 14.4 million shekels for 2024 will be redirected to the new Tecumah Authority, the task of which is to reconstruct and revitalize the severely affected western Negev region.
The decision will soon be submitted to the Knesset for final approval of the dissolution of the ministry.