There has been a significant decline in the rate of reserve soldiers showing up for duty in recent weeks compared to the start of the war, The Times of Israel learned on Monday.
At the start of the war, the Israel Defense Forces reported that more than 100 percent of reservists called up for duty had shown up — nearly 300,000 reservists in total, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.
In some units, the turnout rate reached 150%, with many reservists showing up for duty despite not receiving formal orders.
In recent weeks, the turnout rate in the reservist units currently fighting in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
and the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
Strip has varied between 75% and 85%, according to defense sources.
The decline has been attributed by senior officers to burnout among reservists after fighting for over a year of war, along with them being away from their families for extended periods, losing jobs, or missing academic studies.
It has also been attributed to resentment over the failure of the country to draft masses of the ultra-Orthodox community, while the national religious and secular communities serve at high rates.
The IDF has been seeking to expand its ranks and lengthen the mandatory military service time to relieve the reservists from extended duty, as many of them have already been serving for most of the war and are expected to be called up for over 100 days of duty next year as well.
The ongoing war in Gaza began on October 7, when Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...-led forces of Evil rampaged through southern communities, slaughtering 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The hostilities on the northern border began shortly afterward and ramped up significantly in recent months.
The military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — mostly combat troops — but can only accommodate the enlistment of an additional 3,000 ultra-Orthodox this year, due to their specific needs. This group is in addition to some 1,800 Haredi soldiers who are already drafted annually.
The dispute over the ultra-Orthodox community serving in the military is one of the most contentious in Israel, with decades of governmental and judicial attempts to settle the issue never achieving a stable resolution. The Haredi religious and politicianship fiercely resists any effort to draft its community’s young men.
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews say that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.
Israelis who do serve, however, say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them, a sentiment that has intensified since the October 7 onslaught and the ensuing war, in which more than 780 soldiers have been killed and some 300,000 citizens called up to reserve duty.
This past year, 63,000 Haredi males were listed as eligible for military service.
