Israel’s finance ministry has said that it will divert to the war effort some 1.6 billion shekels ($440 million) this year out of billions earmarked for parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government.

According to Reuters, leading Israeli economists and central bankers estimate the conflict with Hamas will cost the government tens of billions of shekels and have called on Netanyahu to cancel billions of dollars of non-essential spending.

The finance ministry’s proposal would cut around 70% of 2.5 billion shekels of funding for coalition partners still due to be paid in the current 2023 budget.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had said in a letter on Friday that he planned to cut some 4 billion shekels ($1 billion) from the 2023 budget excluding war funding, and increase war funding by a further 9 billion, on top of 22 billion shekels already allocated.