JERUSALEM — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not attend a memorial service in South Africa for Nelson Mandela due to the high cost of transportation and security.

The decision was announced late on Sunday, hours before Netanyahu’s scheduled Monday departure for the memorial event to have been held Dec. 10 at Johannesburg’s FNB stadium. Some 70 world leaders, many heads of state, as well as all living U.S. presidents and more than two dozen members of the U.S. Congress, are scheduled to attend the event, which will include about 150,000 people.

It was unclear if Israeli President Shimon Peres would decide to attend the memorial once it was announced that Netanyahu would not attend. The costs to send the president reportedly are significantly lower.

Netanyahu’s decision comes less than a week after the disclosure of the large amount of taxpayer money spent on the Prime Minister’s official residence, and his two private residences.

The cost to send Netanyahu to the Mandela memorial would have been close to $2 million, including chartering a private plane and transporting security personnel and equipment, according to Ha’aretz. Netanyahu’s visit reportedly would have been protested by pro-Palestinian demonstrators in South Africa.