PM: Israel needs a large army, has shifted from containment to initiative

Israel needs a large army, with its reserve formations at its core, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a conference with senior reserve officers.

“The reserve force is a fundamental component, a core element,” says Netanyahu, alongside Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir. “We need a large, strong, and also smart army.”

For decades before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, the IDF had been closing reserve units, moving toward a “small, smart” military based on highly-trained active duty forces.

The two years of multi-front ground combat since the Hamas invasion relied heavily on reservists, who served in repeated rounds of call-ups.

“We have not only changed the Middle East — we have changed ourselves,” says Netanyahu. “There is no more containment. There is constant initiative and proactivity.”

Reserve formations, says Netanyahu, “once again showed up, contrary to everything the enemy thought. They were wrong. They misjudged us. They misjudged you.”

The IDF and defense establishment have said the army is in need of 12,000 additional combat soldiers due to the country’s heightened security needs and the deaths and injury to thousands of soldiers in the two years of war since the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacre.

Netanyahu’s government has come under sharp criticism over its failure to take effective enforcement measures against ultra-Orthodox draft evaders and its efforts to enshrine exemptions in law.

A controversial bill being pushed by the government would, five years from its passage, draft only 50% of Haredi men eligible for the draft every year.