Name: Israel launches billion-shekel plan to combat flooding crisis
Uploaded: 2025-12-10T09:59:55.147Z
Duration: 4 min 17 s
Description: As rainfall increases with climate change, Israel is pouring over 12 billion shekels into a national plan to deal with a rising national flooding issue.

As rainfall increases with climate change, Israel is pouring over 12 billion shekels into a national plan to deal with a rising national flooding issue.

Jerusalem

The Israeli government has launched its first comprehensive national plan to prevent flooding, investing over 1 billion shekels (approximately $250 million) in 13 projects across the country. The plan includes the creation of 'urban sponges' and new mechanisms to absorb excess water, particularly in areas prone to river overflow.

This initiative follows a significant rise in rainfall over recent decades, as documented by the Israeli meteorological survey, and aims to address both current and future development challenges. The plan is expected to improve infrastructure in older, vulnerable cities and reduce the risk of deadly incidents caused by severe flooding.

Israel launches billion-shekel plan to combat flooding crisis

Open the floodgates or shut them in Israel planners just approved Israel's first national outline to prevent flooding But for anyone who's ever been in Tel Aviv when it rains, this is crucial to discuss more I am joined in studio now by our I-24 news correspondent Joe Brown and Joe What's been surprising us all day is the fact that this is the first ever plan It seems like this is something that maybe should have been in place years ago. So why now what details can you share? Well, there's a running joke in Israel that the country is better at dealing with Missiles than it is with rain and there is actually a degree of truth to it because whenever there's even the tiniest bit of rain Streets closed people refuse to go outside. You can see in some of the videos there That's what tends to happen The rivers will overflow and this will flood onto the streets and now the Israeli government is finally trying to do something about it They're investing over 1 billion shekels. This is around about 250 million dollars and they are creating 13 projects around The country over the next five years to try and prevent this from happening One of the things they're doing is they are creating what's called urban sponges so these are areas in the country which they will essentially siphon water off into this tends to be more arid areas and this will essentially take up all of the water but on top of that one of the main issues one of the main causes of Flooding is the fact that the rivers will overflow. So now they are putting in new mechanisms to try and absorb as much of the water through the Basins at its core as much as possible, but to answer your question, why now? Two words climate change There's been a new study that was put out by the Israeli meteorological Survey, which was that Rainfall over the last Three decades since the 90s has increased massively. I have some of the numbers here in coastal plain areas, so that's for example Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Netanya. This is increased by 35% the rainfall in valleys It's increased by 30% and in the mountains in northern Israel. It's increased by 20% and not only is this an issue for the people living there It's an issue for the people who want to live there. One thing that Israel is trying to do to entice some of the wealthier People to the country is they are building in areas such as southern Netanya But with these floods this makes these areas Barely livable. So if they are able to sort this out and to keep the water levels as low as possible Then they're able to get more of a go-ahead on these bills and they're able to create more homes It certainly sounds like they're putting the money where the plan is to try and fix this problem And and I know we don't see this rain that often these floods that often but when we do Joe there have been some some Deadly examples that we do we have a history of biblical floods here in Israel and even in past recent years We have seen the dangers that it can cause. Yes The way I described this to people from England because they always say like oh it's raining all the time here So what in England's and I'm assuming in a lot of other countries with similar climates there's rain constantly, but it's very gentle It's a pizza pasta when there's rain here. It is brutal It's close to monsoon levels and there've been many instance around this in Tel Aviv in 2020 There was a very tragic case in which a couple got stranded in an elevator in their basement it was cut off because of the flooding the electrical systems faulted and The elevator got filled up with water and tragically they drowned. This is an issue in Older buildings they lived in an older building in southern Tel Aviv But there are issues with places with older buildings and older cities Tending to be the poorest cities with the older drainage system So hopefully over the next five years with this money that's being pumped into it We might be able to see some changes certainly something that it seems was long overdue, but at least it's happening now correspondent Joe Brown breaking it down for us. Thank you very much

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