BBCIsrael’s war on multiple fronts has not just worn down its enemy. It’s not just taken the lives of thousands of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. It’s also continuing to extract a price from its own people.
There’s a growing sense of war weariness in Israel. The recent ceasefire deal with Lebanon will be a relief for many. Not least for Noam Glukhovsky – an IDF reservist, who’s spent much of the past year serving on the front line as a medic.
We spoke to Noam, 33, in Tel Aviv before the ceasefire was announced. “We can’t keep doing this war for much longer. We just don’t have the manpower to keep going on without a clear end date and goal,” he said.
As an IDF reservist Noam would normally expect to do a few weeks of military service a year. But this past year he’s spent 250 days in uniform. The war, he said, had ripped him away from the life he knew. His plans to become a doctor have also been set back by a year.
When we meet Noam was trying to catch up with his studies, but also waiting to see whether he’d be called up again. His mood was defiant.
“I can’t put my life on hold anymore,” he said. Unless there was a dramatic change in the direction of the war, he said he wouldn’t be returning to his unit. He’d had enough.
The IDF already acknowledges that fewer reserves are now reporting for duty. After the attacks by Hamas on 7 October last year, which killed about 1,200 people, more than 300,000 reservists responded. Turnout exceeded 100%. Now it’s down to 85%. Noam estimates that in his unit the response is even lower – with around 60% of those called up now reporting for duty.
Reserves and conscripts are the lifeblood of the IDF. Brigadier General Ariel Heimann – also a reservist and a former chief reserve officer – says Israel is too small a country to have a large, expensive, professional, regular army. Without reservists, he says, the IDF wouldn’t be able to fight or survive.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the IDF has 170,000 active duty personnel, including conscripts, and 465,000 reserves.
Brig Gen Heimann admits the IDF’s reliance on reserves will become more challenging the longer the war goes on. He likened the IDF to a spring – if it’s stretched too far it’ll break. At the moment he says it’s coping.
But in a sign of the strain the IDF wants to extend mandatory service for male conscripts from 32 to 36 months.
The fact that the burden of service is not being shared by all, has also fuelled a sense of resentment. One group has been exempt from military service for decades – thousands of Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, Jews. They believe the lives of their young men should be dedicated to religious studies not military service.
The issue has already divided Israel’s coalition government. But, following the intervention of the attorney general, call up papers are being sent to 7,000 Haredi Jewish men. They’ve responded with angry protests. But Brig Gen Heimann, like the ousted former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, says they have a “moral duty to serve”.
There’s not just a personal sacrifice required, but an economic one too.
The Bank of Israel said in May that the cost of the war for Israel could reach $70bn (£55bn) by the end of next year, an estimate made before the country’s ground invasion of Lebanon. Small businesses are among the hardest hit.
Shelly Lotan’s food tech start-up is among many fighting for survival. Shelly’s already had to move her business from northern Israel to avoid Hezbollah’s rockets. Two of her seven employees have been called up for military service.
On the morning we meet, at her Tel Aviv home, Shelly has just received more bad news. She’s received a text from one of her staff whose military service is being extended.
“I just can’t express how critical it is to have another employee missing for another month,” says Shelly.
“I cannot even hire someone else or solve this gap.”
Shelly’s also had to juggle family life with three young children. Her husband, also a reservist, has had to spend long periods away from home.
A ceasefire in Lebanon may ease some of the pressure. But there’s still fighting in Gaza. Shelly Lotan fears for the future without a clear strategy from Israel’s government to end the conflict.
“I think the war should have ended by now,” she says.
