IDF official again warns MKs of military’s personnel shortage

A senior military officer again stresses to lawmakers that the IDF urgently needs the government to extend the mandatory service time for conscripts, among other legislation, to address the army’s personnel shortages.

Speaking at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, says the IDF needs three laws that will help solve the manpower crisis: “an effective conscription law,” lengthening mandatory service, and a new reserve duty law — given that currently the IDF relies on emergency call-up orders with various limitations.

“The standing army is reaching its limit, for the overwhelming majority of the year it is at war, and there are many casualties. The intensity of the fighting is only increasing, and this is what the coming years are going to look like,” Tayeb says.

The IDF has repeatedly urged the government to extend mandatory military service for men to 36 months again, after it was shortened to 30 months in August 2024. The government has so far refused to approve this move. The first cohort enlisted under this shorter service period will be discharged in January 2027, further exacerbating manpower issues unless the existing law is changed.

“Extending service will provide an answer for force buildup and burnout, as well as flexibility,” he says, while noting that meanwhile, the IDF has “done a great deal to expand its ranks,” including establishing dozens of reserve battalions, forming two new infantry battalions, and returning “tens of thousands of personnel to [reserve] service.”

“We are also taking unprecedented steps to integrate members of the ultra-Orthodox community, [but] the reality shows that what we are doing is not enough,” Tayeb says.

He warns that in January 2027, “we will have a cohort gap. Because we operate on a four-month cycle, a service length of 30 months does not allow continuous rotation between cohorts, and thus a gap of an entire cohort is created.”

“This means the loss of thousands of combat soldiers,” he adds.

The IDF has repeatedly said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits — including 7,000 combat troops — due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the yearslong multifront war.