Speaking before the Knesset on May 10, Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir renewed his call for the enlistment of additional troops.

The Israeli Army has been heavily engaged on three fronts for three years now and is beginning to show the strain: the excellent active component is worn out, while the Reserve's performance is what it is. Above all, the continuous mobilization of reservists is draining manpower from the sophisticated economy of a very small country — one that lacks strategic depth and suffers considerably during prolonged war cycles. According to the IDF, 12,000 recruits are urgently needed, primarily destined for operational combat roles.

One of the solutions on the table is to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Haredim, who have always been exempt from military service and who account for roughly 14% of the population — a share that is growing, given a birth rate well above that of the rest of the Jewish State. A Supreme Court ruling in June 2024 called for the exemption to be scrapped, but since then the Haredim have taken to the streets systematically, effectively stalling the implementation of the decision. According to Israeli estimates, there are at least 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 eligible for military service.

The blanket, then, is short for the Israeli Army, and recent developments on the Lebanese front certainly do not help. Hezbollah has shown surprising resilience despite the devastating blows it has taken, and is now successfully playing the FPV drone card as well: a tactic and a capability built up in just a few months — with whose help? Former Assad loyalists? Russians? — and one that is causing the IDF significant trouble.

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