rewrite this title and make it good for SEOStrong shekel lifts forex reserves to new record

Israel’s foreign exchange reserves at the end of April 2026 rose to a record $235.745 billion, an increase of $6.326 billion from their level at the end of March 2026, the Bank of Israel reports.

Israel’s foreign exchange reserves at the end of April 2026 rose to a record $235.745 billion, an increase of $6.326 billion from their level at the end of March 2026, the Bank of Israel reports. The level of the reserves relative to GDP at the end of April was 38.4%.

The increase was the result of a revaluation that increased the reserves by approximately $7.467 billion, partly offset by government foreign exchange activities totaling about $1.154 billion.

Israel’s foreign exchange reserves have risen from $222.035 billion at the end of April 2025 to $235.745 billion at the end of April 2026.

In March 2026, for only the second time since the start of the war in October 2023, the Bank of Israel intervened in one of the foreign currency submarkets, the Repo market. The Bank of Israel carried out repo deals worth about $64 million during the month in which the Iran war was at its peak. The previous time the Bank of Israel undertook a similar step in the repo market was in October 2023, when it carried out deals worth about NIS 95 million.

In June 2025, the Bank of Israel sold nearly $300 million in foreign currency – its first such sales since the early months of the war in Gaza. Despite announcing in October 2023 at the start of the war, a plan to sell up to $30 billion in foreign currency to support the shekel, the Bank of Israel only sold $8.5 billion in foreign currency, most of it in October and November 2023.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on May 7, 2026.

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