Israeli army chief warns reserve forces could 'collapse' amid manpower crisis

Israel's military chief has warned lawmakers that the army's reserve forces could face collapse within months unless the government urgently passes legislation to expand conscription and extend military service, Israeli media reported.

In a classified meeting of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Monday, Israeli army chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, reportedly urged legislators to move quickly on laws extending mandatory military service to 36 months, increasing recruitment and revising reserve duty regulations.

"In January 2027, due to the reduction of mandatory service to 30 months, the IDF [Israeli army] will lose thousands more combat soldiers," Zamir told the committee.

"The reserve army will collapse into itself," he added, according to i24news.

Zamir warned MPs that after nearly three years of war on multiple fronts, the military is facing a severe manpower shortage that could undermine future operations.

"I do not deal with political or legislative processes," Zamir said. "I am engaged in multi-front warfare and in defeating the enemy. In order to continue doing that, the IDF [Israeli army] urgently needs more soldiers."

According to the Israeli news outlet Ynet, Zamir said the army "is at the lower threshold in terms of manpower" as Israel's extensive military campaigns continue to exact a heavy toll.

His warning came weeks after he reportedly told the government that the military needs 15,000 additional soldiers, including between 7,000 and 8,000 combat troops, as Israel approved 30 new illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank requiring military protection.

A senior officer in the military's Manpower Directorate reportedly said on Sunday that if mandatory service is not extended, reservists may be required to serve between 80 and 100 days each year.

On Monday, Israel Hayom reported that the Knesset committee extended the reserve call-up order for about 400,000 reservists until the end of the month.

The Marker newspaper also reported that over the past year and a half, the military recruited about 8,000 soldiers through a shortened career-service programme aimed at easing personnel shortages.

Ultra-Orthodox enlistment dispute

Opposition politicians seized on Zamir's remarks to criticise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for failing to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into military service.

Former army chief Gadi Eisenkot accused the government of "evading responsibility and prioritizing political considerations over the country's security".

'100,000 healthy ultra-Orthodox young men who, because of politics, are not being drafted'

"A government that does not demand conscription for everyone at such a critical moment for Israel," Eisenkot wrote on X, "is a government that does not deserve to remain in office for even one more day".

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also criticised the government, saying continued draft exemptions were "costing the lives of our soldiers".

There were "100,000 healthy ultra-Orthodox young men who, because of politics, are not being drafted," Bennett said.

Since October 2023, public debate in Israel over military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews has intensified as the military’s operational demands have expanded.

Senior military officials and politicians across the political spectrum have increasingly called for ultra-Orthodox enlistment as Israel continues its war on Gaza and military operations across the region.

However, Netanyahu's government has so far failed to pass a new conscription law amid divisions within his ruling coalition.

Avigdor Liberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, described the failure to enlist ultra-Orthodox Jews as "a devastating blow to the security and future of the State of Israel".

Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party and a former senior army officer, accused the government of "selling out the country's security simply to preserve ultra-Orthodox draft evasion".

"This is simply a betrayal of our soldiers," Golan said.

A new foreign legion?

The manpower crisis has also intensified a separate debate over the recruitment of women into combat units. At the committee meeting, Zamir defended the continued enlistment of women despite opposition from some religious leaders.

"Women are an inseparable part of the IDF's [Israeli army's] strength," he said.

Last month, religious-Zionist rabbis warned that continued recruitment of women into mixed-gender combat units could discourage members of their communities from military service.

"Under no circumstances can we allow our male and female students to serve in mixed-gender frameworks that place them in impossible situations," one rabbi said during an emergency conference of religious-Zionist leaders.

Days later, Israel's public broadcaster Kan 11 reported that three religious soldiers refused to serve at a military base in northern Israel after a female soldier was assigned there.

With the government failing to pass a new conscription law, some Israeli security analysts have proposed alternative solutions to the military’s manpower shortage.

In February, two researchers at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, a right-wing security think tank, proposed the creation of a foreign legion modelled on the force operated by the French military.

The researchers argued that increasing recruitment among Jewish communities abroad would not meet the military's demands, and instead proposed allowing "the enlistment of non-citizen volunteers", which they said would effectively establish a foreign legion within Israel.

While acknowledging that such a proposal "will likely make many Israelis uncomfortable", the report argued that "there is no compelling reason to forgo the assistance of foreign volunteers in advancing the Zionist project".