Tens of thousands of Israeli reservists have begun to receive call-up orders this week to report to military duty, part of a planned mass mobilization to conquer and reoccupy the Gaza Strip.
The government’s premise is that such a drastic move is necessary to finally oust Hamas from power and win the release of Israelis still held hostage deep underground in the Islamist militant group’s tunnels.
Yet the government’s plan was swiftly met with a chorus of analysts’ doubts that such an operation would succeed, popular opposition to an expanded war, and suspicions that the government’s motivation was narrowly political, meant to appease its most extreme members.
Why We Wrote This
Israeli government plans for the reconquest of Gaza require a massive call-up of reservists. But new polls show a plurality of Israelis oppose expanding the war, and a majority think the government is acting politically, not strategically.
Israel’s citizen-soldiers are doctors and taxi drivers, university students and high-tech workers, new parents and small-business owners. Some already have spent hundreds of days in the reserves, called up as many as six times since Hamas triggered the war in Gaza with an invasion of Israel’s southern border 19 months ago. And resentment is growing that the burden is not shared equitably across all segments of society.
Even Israel’s new army chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, handpicked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly has warned the government that it lacks sufficient manpower for such an operation and that reservists are exhausted.
Israel’s longest war
Israel has never had such a long war. Throughout its history, its battle philosophy was to seek lightning-fast conflicts that would return its military ace in the hole – its massive force of trained reservists – to their lives and roles in the economy.
But Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-right government is eschewing the short-wars paradigm and, critics say, exhausting those reservists in the process.
“The declining numbers of reservists reporting for duty is no secret,” wrote Lazar Berman, diplomatic reporter for The Times of Israel news site. “WhatsApp groups are full of posts from reservist units looking for more soldiers. … One reserve paratrooper brigade is short some 200 men. The fewer soldiers a unit has, the more difficult every deployment for those who show up, which wears them down even further.”
An officer reportedly briefed lawmakers recently that the proportion of reservists reporting for duty has fallen from 120% immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack to 75%. Other reports put the number as low as 50%.
While Mr. Berman allows that “patriotism and camaraderie” will provide a sufficient number to begin the Gaza operation, that could soon change amid growing suspicions that the government’s war plans have more to do with its political survival than with strategic considerations.
A Channel 13 poll published Monday found Israelis, by a 46% to 39% margin, oppose expanding the fighting in Gaza, with 53% thinking Mr. Netanyahu’s war decision is political.
Lieutenant General Zamir reportedly has also warned Mr. Netanyahu’s security Cabinet that a full-scale invasion of Gaza may still not free the hostages. Even worse, it could endanger the lives of the approximately 24 thought to still be alive, a view endorsed by 57% of those polled by Channel 13.
Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, argues that while there is no doubt Israeli reservists are exhausted by a “war [that] seems to have no end in sight,” there’s something else at play aside from their desire to end the war for the sake of a hostage deal: a diminished willingness to accept that most ultra-Orthodox youth do not get drafted.
“Will reservists show up for service when called? By and large, yes, they … feel a historic and sociological obligation to serve,” he says. “But there is growing frustration … and a sense that our policymakers must ensure the great duty and burden of protecting Israel is shared.”
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
The “traitor” label’s sting
From shortly after Mr. Netanyahu’s government took office in January 2023, and until the Hamas attack that October, Israel experienced the largest street protests in its history. Under the banner of saving democracy, hundreds of thousands opposed the coalition’s planned overhaul of the judiciary.
Playing a leading role in the protests was a new grassroots group of reservists called Brothers in Arms – some of whom threatened to refuse reserve duty to protest what they saw as an executive branch power grab.
The messaging from the coalition and its supporters was that they were “traitors.” Since the war broke out, that label has packed an extra sting, even though those same protesters did report for duty immediately after Oct. 7.
Recently, even some previously outspoken reservists have gone silent.
“It’s been very difficult for soldiers to speak out against the war because of the social stigma,” says Max Kresch, a combat medic in the reserves, a university student majoring in biology, and a member of an organization called Soldiers for the Hostages.
“Many of us have literally given decades of our life in service of the country,” he says. “It is being used cynically for political reasons [in violation of] the values we enlisted under.”
Mr. Kresch says he has heard multiple stories of reservists telling their commanders they would prefer to be court-martialed rather than return to another round of reserve duty. Others, he says, are texting their units’ WhatsApp groups that they won’t be coming back.
Ammar Awad/Reuters
In an Instagram post, he tells his fellow reservists to refuse the current call-up, saying it will endanger hostages’ lives.
Brig. Gen. (Reserves) Amir Avivi, founder and chair of the hawkish Israel Defense and Security Forum think tank, argues, however, that 19 months into the war, the new, aggressive plan is the right one to fully defeat Hamas and win back the hostages.
“Reservists want to feel they are doing something meaningful. I think the motivation is there” to show up for duty this round, too, he says. “There are a lot of challenges,” but the army’s new leadership “gives soldiers the feeling there is a new spirit to get things done.”
Yet Galia David, whose son Evyatar is a hostage, told Israel Radio she is not assuaged by such words.
“I am terrified. I know [conquering Gaza] will endanger the hostages, that they will suffer more violence, many of them are being abused as it is,” she says.
“A military operation like this will only add to the extremely high price we are already paying. My children are the same ages as the soldiers and reservists, and what’s happening is personally incredibly painful.”