CrossFireArabia
The Israeli army is so short up for manpower it’s calling up its reserve soldiers who were previously exempted from service.
This order is coming from the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant who have cancelled all previous exemtions from the Israeli army due to the shortage in the number of soldiers.
The army and the Minister’s office have confirmed this step comes “after an assessment of the situation and the scope of activity of regular and reserve forces, and as part of the process that the army is planning to increase the number of individuals serving in it.”
The army is facing an acute shortage of 50,000 soldiers as the fighting in Gaza continues, and the confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon could expand into a full-scale war.
Former head of the Israeli army’s Soldiers’ Complaints Division, Yitzhak Brick said the army is facing a catastrophic situation.
The retired general blamed Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi for not planning to make up for the shortage in ground forces after they were reduced by six divisions over the past 20 years.
He said this “makes it impossible to win in the Gaza Strip, let alone win a regional war in which fighting must be fought in multiple arenas at the same time.”
The Israeli government has ordered the immediate recruitment of 3,000 from the ultra-Orthodox section. It says this would plug the gap at this initial stage. Galant however wants to recruit an additional 10,000 soldiers immediately to fill some of the army’s manpower shortage according to Jo24.
