Netivot Petitions High Court to Enforce Post-October 7 Rehabilitation Plan
The municipality of Netivot has petitioned the High Court of Justice against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and government ministries, demanding the enforcement of Resolution 3303 for post-October 7 rehabilitation and development. The city argues that bureaucratic criteria have slashed its share of funds to a quarter despite housing half the regional population.
The municipality of Netivot has filed a petition with the High Court of Justice against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Ministers of Finance, National Security, Negev and Galilee, and Welfare and Labour. The petition demands that the state enforce Government Resolution 3303, which concerns the rehabilitation and development of the city following the events of October 7. According to the municipality, more than a year after the decision was adopted, the manner in which government ministries have implemented it has significantly reduced Netivot share of rehabilitation budgets, and in some cases, approved funds have remained unspent.
The current petition, filed through attorneys Ron Tzin, Shelly Lev-Sherman, and Tair Sinitsin of the Arnon Tadmor-Levy law firm, marks another chapter in Netivot ongoing struggle to secure rehabilitation responses in the wake of October 7. Located approximately 8 kilometers from the security fence, the city was left outside the Tkuma region, which was defined according to a range of up to 7 kilometers, despite hundreds of rockets being fired at it, residents being killed and wounded by the fire, and dozens of destruction sites being identified within its limits. In February 2024, the municipality petitioned the High Court for the first time, demanding to be included in the rehabilitation framework. Following the petition, the government formulated an additional assistance framework for localities outside the Tkuma region. Government staff work found that alongside 47 localities in the Tkuma region, 25 additional localities suffered "exceptional overall damage" but had not received government responses. In August 2025, Resolution 3303 was adopted, approving a rehabilitation and development program for them spanning 2025-2029, with a scope of approximately 1.8 billion shekels. Following the decision, the first petition was withdrawn, and the High Court even ordered the state to pay costs.
Half the Population, Quarter of the Budget
Now, the municipality of Netivot, led by Mayor and Likud member Yehiel Zohar, is forced to return to the High Court. This time, not to have the state recognize the need for the city rehabilitation, but to ensure that the rehabilitation decision already adopted is actually implemented. The government program is intended for 25 localities located within the jurisdiction of six authorities: Netivot, Ofakim, and the regional councils of Eshkol, Sha'ar HaNegev, Sdot Negev, and Merhavim. However, while all residents of Netivot and Ofakim are included in the program, in the regional councils only some of the localities are included, since other localities already receive responses within the framework of the Tkuma region.
Netivot has a population of approximately 61,000, accounting for about 50% of the total population of the resolution's localities, yet they receive only a quarter of the budgets. It is argued that some government ministries calculate budget distribution according to the total population of the authorities, including residents to whom Resolution 3303 does not apply. Consequently, the relative share of the regional councils increases while Netivot share diminishes. For example, the resolution allocated 4 million shekels annually for the renovation and equipping of public institutions. However, according to criteria set by the Ministry of Negev and Galilee, any authority with more than 10,000 residents is entitled to a maximum of 1 million shekels. The implication is that Netivot, home to about half of the resolution localities residents, is entitled to only a quarter of the annual budget—an amount identical to that of Ofakim, whose population is significantly smaller.
Criteria and Implementation Failures
Another central claim is directed at the Ministry of National Security. Resolution 3303 allocated 18.7 million shekels for violence prevention programs and the strengthening of community security, stipulating that distribution would be made according to criteria set by the ministry, including the population size of the resolution localities. However, according to the municipality, the ministry failed to establish dedicated criteria for the rehabilitation program and instead applied a nationwide budgetary model formulated as early as April 2025—about four months before Resolution 3303 was adopted—for the routine funding of hundreds of local authorities. The petition argues that a model intended to deal with routine violence and crime does not reflect the purpose of a dedicated rehabilitation decision born from the exceptional damage suffered by the 25 localities.
The petition also points to cases where, according to the municipality, the problem is not merely the method of distribution but the actual execution of the budget. Among other things, it is claimed that a dedicated budget of 10 million shekels for security technological means was not established as a separate budget, and that the Ministry of National Security regards the budget already transferred under the violence prevention program as fulfilling this clause as well. In the welfare sector, approximately 21 million shekels were approved for Netivot for the five years of the program, amounting to about 4.2 million shekels per year. However, according to the municipality, the 2025 budget could not be utilized due to the short timeframe and approval procedures that extended beyond the budget year. Subsequently, the Ministry of Finance refused to allow the transfer of the remaining balance to subsequent years. The municipality argues that an already allocated rehabilitation budget thus went to waste for reasons beyond its control.
Attorneys Tzin, Lev-Sherman, and Sinitsin stated: "The petition does not ask the court to set a new budgetary policy. The policy has already been established in the government resolution. The argument is that its implementation relies on criteria unsuited to its purpose, and in some cases on criteria established earlier and for other purposes. The government resolution explicitly distinguished between the authorities through which the funds are transferred and the localities for whose residents they are intended. When this distinction is blurred and the weight of population size is reduced, the result, according to the municipality, is precisely the distortion that the resolution was designed to correct."
