Israel’s ‘forever war’ stretches IDF to the limit

With Hamas gunmen still rampaging through army bases and villages in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Ittai Marinberg packed a bag, kissed his wife and two young girls goodbye, and headed out to fight.

He became one of some 300,000 Israeli reservists mobilised early in the war, serving for 200 days across three combat tours in Gaza — with more expected later this year — in what became a multi-front ground campaign across southern Lebanon, Syria and the occupied West Bank.

“We were told to prepare for five years of intense fighting,” said his wife, Chen Arbel Marinberg, who helped found the non-profit Reservists’ Wives Forum to provide support for tens of thousands of families like hers.

With Israel renewing its offensive against Hamas this week, Ittai and thousands of other reservists in the Israel Defense Forces — some of whom have been in uniform twice as long — now face the prospect of an immediate return to war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new IDF chief Eyal Zamir have threatened to follow up their air campaign in Gaza with a ferocious new ground offensive if Hamas refuses to release more Israeli hostages.

Yet it is unclear how much more Israel’s armed forces can take. For much of its history, Israel chose to fight short and decisive wars, with most campaigns measured in days and weeks, to minimise the burden on the reservists it would call up to augment the regular army.

With no end in sight, defence analysts and reservists have begun to warn of growing attrition on the fighting force, with jobs, families and lives put on hold.

They also point to signs of disillusionment with the aims of Netanyahu and his far-right cabinet, who have ruled out ending fighting despite public pressure for a deal to bring home the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

“For the first time (since the start of the war) there may be a chance some reservists won’t report for duty,” said Amos Harel, the defence analyst for newspaper Haaretz and author of a book on civil-military relations.

“This could become a bigger problem if there’s no consensus behind the war.”

Zamir, a steely-faced former tank commander who took over the military this month, had warned, while he was deputy IDF chief-of-staff in 2021, against Israel’s move towards a “smaller, smarter” fighting force dependent on technology, air power and special forces.

He argued that the country would instead need “a critical mass” of forces to fight what in future could be a “heavy, long and multi-front campaign”. Earlier this month he said: “2025 will be a year of war.”

In Israel, most Jewish men and women are obliged to enlist in the military for two to three years at the age of 18. Afterwards, many continue in the reserves, with an estimated 450,000 potentially on standby to supplement the standing army of approximately 170,000 soldiers.

But before the current war, Chen said, reservists’ “deal with the IDF was (to serve) 30 days a year”.

According to the IDF’s figures, over 800 soldiers have been killed and some 6,000 injured since the start of the war, with some analysts arguing the latter figure is higher when accounting for mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The conflict has taken a devastating toll on Israel’s neighbours, with more than 48,000 people killed in Gaza, 4,000 in Lebanon, and some 1,000 in the West Bank, according to local health authorities. The figures include civilians and combatants.

Israeli military officials argue that 10,000 more soldiers are needed — especially new armour and infantry brigades — in order to better defend Israel’s borders and “indefinitely” hold buffer zones inside neighbouring territory.

But analysts warn that such changes to the IDF’s organisational structure will take time to develop. And plans to expand the army will bump up against a bigger challenge: the issue of whether or not to conscript young ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish men.

Ultra-Orthodox, who make up about 14 per cent of the population, have been exempted from military service since Israel’s founding, a policy that had faced growing resistance even before October 7. The Supreme Court has deemed it unconstitutional and the vast majority of the Jewish Israeli public demand they also serve.

Netanyahu, whose coalition depends on Haredi allies, has made clear his government does not intend to forcibly conscript the ultra-Orthodox. Only a few hundred Haredi men have enlisted over the past year, out of over 10,000 draft orders the IDF sent out, according to official figures.

According to a Reservists’ Wives Forum poll last November, some 80 per cent of respondents said their motivation to serve had decreased since the start of the war due to both the lack of conscription of ultra-Orthodox and personal difficulties.

Benjamin, a married father of two who served for a month early in the war, said that, while he wanted to return to duty, he can’t.

“It would collapse the household,” he said. “My wife isn’t able to be alone with the kids, and the company (which I manage) would close.” (Benjamin, like most reservists interviewed, declined to provide his last name.)

The IDF, which does not put out figures on attrition, said in a statement that “there has been no drastic change in the enlistment rates, and the units are fulfilling their missions”.

Several reservists who spoke to the Financial Times said that, while it is rare for a reservist to fully quit their unit, they are now more likely to miss a call-up for training or operational duty due to personal reasons.

One reserve officer stationed for months near the Gaza border said the reporting rate for some reservist units has become “less than half”.

This rough figure was corroborated by Harel, the defence analyst, who added that the wider debate about the direction of the war would be likely to compound anger.

Polls show that more than 60 per cent of Israelis want Netanyahu to strike a deal with Hamas to return the remaining hostages, even if it means ending the war. However, the prime minister, under pressure from his far-right political allies, has vowed not to stop fighting until Hamas has been eliminated.

Opposition parties and hostage families say the escalation will jeopardise the lives of those still held captive in Gaza, arguing that the war is being politicised to ensure the survival of Netanyahu’s coalition.

Netanyahu’s attempt last week to fire the head of the domestic spy agency deepened the domestic turmoil, reviving fears of a constitutional crisis which, before the October 7 attack, had led thousands of reservists to suspend their service in protest.

Harel said that reservists may do so again if they feel “they are meant to sacrifice themselves to achieve the far-right’s true goals of rebuilding the settlements in Gaza and expelling all the Palestinians, and not just destroying Hamas and getting the hostages back”.

In recent days, an air force navigator and intelligence officer said they were suspending their reserve service, with the latter saying on X he would not participate in a war not in “the interests of the people of Israel”. Both were discharged.

Yet, however they feel about the prime minister, most reservists say they will continue to report for what they view as an existential battle.

David had already been long discharged from reserve duty when the war broke out, but volunteered to serve six months in Gaza and another tour in the West Bank.

He said that, while maybe a quarter of his unit have limited their availability, he was adamant that “people will show up once we get the call again”.

“Our homes are right there and I’m not going to leave my guys,” he said. “A ‘forever war’ may serve Netanyahu, sure, but there are still things we need to accomplish.”

Cartography by Jana Tauschinski