Over 68,000 displaced Israelis to receive housing extension through Feb. 2025

The Israeli government plans to approve extended state-funded housing for 68,000 people, offering continued help to those displaced by the ongoing fighting in the North and South, Israel's Tourism Ministry shared on Saturday. 

Currently, about 13,580 people are staying in state-funded hotels and temporary housing. Another 54,555 evacuees are living in communities, including around 4,200 from southern Israel, and are receiving financial support for their living expenses.

The Tourism Ministry, led by Minister Haim Katz, has been handling the evacuation efforts for over a year. Evacuees are staying in hundreds of hotels and thousands of other places across the country.

So far, the cost of evacuating people has gone over NIS 9 billion. Out of this, NIS 6 billion was paid to hotels and private property owners. Katz came up with an idea to let displaced people choose self-housing grants instead.

These grants are NIS 200 per adult and NIS 100 per child each day.

This plan has saved the government more than NIS 5 billion. The savings occurred because self-housing is substantially cheaper than staying in hotels.

October 7 massacre

Since last year’s October 7 attacks, more than 250,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes around Israel’s borders in the North and South due to the conflict, The Media Line reported in late October. 

Many have returned to their homes after months of displacement, but tens of thousands are still in temporary housing.

In a study carried out by the Maagar Mochot research institution in October, 70% of evacuees from northern Israel had considered not returning home, and 3% have already left their communities permanently.