IDF chief warns PM, Katz that manpower shortage harming army’s preparedness

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir wrote a pointed letter last week to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials, warning that the current shortage of soldiers could harm military readiness in the very near future.

The letter dated January 11, and first reported by Channel 12 on Monday, was sent to the prime minister, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Boaz Bismuth. On Tuesday, Katz published the letter in full in a post on X.

It comes as Netanyahu’s government is working to pass a bill that would enshrine blanket exemptions from military conscription for Haredi yeshiva students, despite the IDF warning repeatedly that it needs more troops after two years of war.

Bismuth is the architect of the bill. Netanyahu tapped him to be the head of the Knesset committee last year instead of another Likud lawmaker who was pushed out of the post after clashing with Haredi politicians over the bill.

“The security reality in the last two years has led to unprecedented challenges and to significant effects on the various manpower arrays in the IDF,” Zamir wrote.

Zamir made no explicit reference to the Haredi draft exemption bill, but rather stressed that there must be legislation to extend mandatory military service for men back to 36 months, from the current 30, “urgently, immediately, and retroactively,” or else IDF force design, readiness, and training will be “severely impacted.”

The IDF chief also noted that legislation that would increase the age of retirement from reserve duty and extend the time reservists spend during “routine” reserve duty was also not being advanced, leading the military to rely on emergency call-up orders, which have various limitations and require government approval every few months.

“The legislation about these matters is not progressing in the way that is necessary, and could lead the IDF to be in a state of unreadiness,” Zamir wrote. “The effects will be felt in the coming year, and even more so beginning in January 2027.”

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, causing widespread resentment among non-Haredi Israeli Jews. The IDF has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits, mostly combat troops, due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has pushed for a law keeping its constituency out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

Critics of the current bill argue that it falls short of meeting the military’s needs. They also say it would perpetuate a structural disparity in Israeli society, in which Haredim avoid a draft that, for other Jewish Israelis, is mandatory.

The bill’s supporters claim it will boost the IDF’s ranks with graduates of Haredi educational institutions, and contend that it reflects a compromise that will actually bring Haredim into the military.