Israel has borrowed billions of dollars in recent weeks through privately negotiated deals to help fund its war against Hamas but is having to pay unusually high borrowing costs to get the deals over the line.
Since Hamas’s attack on October 7, Israel has raised more than $6bn from international debt investors. This has included $5.1bn across three new bond issues and six top-ups of existing dollar and euro-denominated bonds, and more than $1bn of fundraising through a US entity.
Investors said recent bonds had been issued in so-called private placements, a process through which the securities are not offered to the public market but instead sold to select investors.