Maalot-Tarshicha's mayor, Shlomo Buchbout, who heads the Northern Frontier Communities Forum, said Sunday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statements about massive cash transfers to aid the north were baseless. Buchbout said he hoped Olmert had been misled because "it will be very as serious matter if the Prime Minister speaks untrue things."

Speaking on Israel National News, Buchbout mentioned that the State Ombudsman himself said money that was supposed to reach the northern communities reached the Gaza Belt instead and that other funds that were supposed to be donated to the north "disappeared."