JERUSALEM, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Knesset (parliament) gave final approval to the 2019 state budget early Thursday, following a bitter political row.
The budget, which passed the 120-seat parliament with a vote of 62-54, amounts to 479.6 billion shekels (140 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of almost 20 billion shekels from the 2018 budget.
Security expenses, which constitutes the largest part of the budget, stand at about 73 billion shekels, while 64 billion shekels are allocated to education, and 42 billion shekels to health.
Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon told the Knesset plenum that the new budget is "the most social (budget) the people of Israel have ever had."
"This budget is for all citizens of the State of Israel, not for the coalition and not for the opposition. That has been my and the Finance Ministry's policy since the first state budget at the end of 2015," he said.
The overnight vote came hours before the end of the parliament's winter session for a recess scheduled to last one month and a half.
The 2019 budget was at the center of a coalition crisis that lasted until Tuesday, in which the ultra-Orthodox partners threatened not to support the budget unless a bill to exempt Jewish ultra-Orthodox men from military conscription is approved.
The crisis was solved after the Knesset passed the bill in a preliminary reading on Tuesday night.
