The Knesset Finance Committee approved Monday legislation that extends tax benefits to towns Judea and Samaria classified as under security threat—placing them on equal footing with communities near the Gaza Strip and Lebanon border that have long received such breaks.
1+The bill, sponsored by Knesset member Tzvi Sukkot, passed its second and third readings and amends Israel’s Income Tax Ordinance. It creates a new designation called the “Eastern Confrontation Line Zone” covering areas in the eastern Judea and Samaria within 2 kilometers of the separation barrier. Judea and Samaria towns requiring armored buses for student transportation will receive an additional 25 points under the tax benefit calculation mechanism—matching southern and northern confrontation line communities that receive a 7% annual tax break.
The legislation corrects what supporters describe as a decades-old inequity: while Israel’s national priority map includes threatened towns in Judea and Samaria, they were never actually included in the criteria granting tax benefits under the Income Tax Ordinance. Residents of communities near Gaza and in the north have been recognized as living under persistent security threat and receive tax relief, but Judea and Samaria residents living under similarly complex security conditions received no such recognition.
1+“The people of Judea and Samaria stand on the front lines of defense and constitute the security buffer of the State of Israel, and today the time has come for the state to express this through tax policy as well,” Sukkot said. “This is a step of fairness and recognition of the reality of life for thousands of families who sacrifice their lives to protect the Land of Israel.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich added: “We are correcting an injustice of decades. The residents of Judea and Samaria stand courageously in a complex security reality and protect parts of the homeland that constitute de facto Israel’s security buffer.”