{"id":314483,"date":"2025-08-29T05:35:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T05:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=314483"},"modified":"2025-08-30T12:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T12:59:12","slug":"depleted-disillusioned-israeli-armys-manpower-crisis-worsens-ahead-of-gaza-city-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=314483","title":{"rendered":"‘Depleted, disillusioned’: Israeli army’s manpower crisis worsens ahead of Gaza City takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cradle \u2013 Aug 28, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The exhaustion and disillusionment facing the Israeli army have threatened to \u201ccomplicate\u201d Tel Aviv\u2019s plans for the upcoming assault to seize and occupy Gaza City, according to soldiers and officers cited by the New York Times<\/em> <\/a>(NYT) on 28 August.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not clear how many of them will return to the fight,\u201d NYT highlighted.<\/p>\n

The report notes how a growing number of Israeli army reservists have not been showing up for service.<\/p>\n

Around a dozen officers and soldiers told NYT that there are \u201cdepleted and exhausted units,\u201d adding that 40 to 50 percent of their comrades were \u201cnot turning up for duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others said that there are soldiers who have dropped out of the military due to the belief that the \u201cwar is no longer just.\u201d A handful of soldiers have faced penalties for failing to report for duty, while some others have served short prison sentences.<\/p>\n

Four Israeli security sources confirmed to NYT that Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir\u2019s opposition to the occupation plans is in part due to the soldiers\u2019 fitness to serve. Zamir has also expressed concern over the danger the operation poses to Israeli captives and the strain it will place on the army.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shortfall will make completing the operation more difficult,\u201d two Israeli defense officials said.<\/p>\n

Omer Dank, an Israeli military analyst and air force reservist, said, \u201cWe keep trying to squeeze out everything we can without real strategic planning. The current model is unsustainable. The army is exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other analysts are cited as saying that reservists have done hundreds of days of service \u2013 negatively affecting their home lives, education, and work.<\/p>\n

One soldier told NYT that his 100-man company had decreased to 60 troops. Another said only half his team showed up during the reservist call-up late last year.<\/p>\n

Due to the manpower issue, Israel\u2019s High Court last year ordered the conscription of ultra-Orthodox religious students who have for years been exempted from service. This has caused a crisis in Israel, with ultra-Orthodox<\/a> parties demanding an exemption law and some even withdrawing from the government.<\/p>\n

The Israeli army in April extended mandatory service by four months due to the manpower crisis.<\/p>\n

Israeli Army Radio reported <\/a>last week that the military is considering reaching out to the Jewish Diaspora abroad to encourage recruitment of 18 to 25-year-olds, particularly in France and the US.<\/p>\n

The army had said that 130,000 Israeli reserve soldiers would be called up for the assault on Gaza City.<\/p>\n

In April, around 1,000 Israeli reserve soldiers from the air force signed<\/a> a letter of protest demanding the prioritization of returning captives from Gaza over the continuation of the war, which they said is being waged for personal and political reasons.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli army insiders are reporting almost half of reservists are not showing up for duty. Such a manpower shortfall could seriously complicate Netanyahu’s plans for Gaza <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":289665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314483"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314486,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314483\/revisions\/314486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/289665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}