The Jewish Agency for Israel will provide an additional NIS 40 million to the Israeli government’s proposed NIS 270 million in providing full protection for all Jewish communities 4.5-7 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.

The funds will be used to build protected spaces in residential housing areas to protect Jewish residents against the barrage of rocket attacks that continue to fall on southern Israel.

The protected spaces will be built by the Jewish Agency’s subsidiary company, Amigour, which is responsible today for the building of 5,000 protected spaces in Sderot and other communities in the Gaza area.

Sunday night another fifteen rockets fell on Jewish communities, forcing residents into secure rooms and disrupting lives.

The Cabinet had unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal for the protection on Sunday and had also authorized the prime minister to decide, within 30 days, on the sources of financing without the need to submit the issue for Cabinet approval.

“This will provide security for residents of the south. We are doing this because attacks by rockets and missiles at shorter distances are much greater in the area around the Gaza Strip than at other distances,” Netanyahu said. “I think that this is what residents of the south have been hoping for, they have been calling for it for a long time.”