Sharp drop seen in reservist response rate due to burnout amid long war
Sources say 75% to 85% of reserve soldiers have been showing up for duty in recent weeks, compared to over 100% at start of fighting
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
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 Lebanon and the Gaza 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-led terrorists 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 political leadership 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.
