IDF warns of extreme manpower shortage as MKs clash over haredi draft bill - Keshet Neev

 

by Keshet Neev

“Only 3,000 haredi soldiers were recruited from two full draft cycles,” Bar Kalifa said. “That is why I say clearly: I need more soldiers.”

 

A soldier from the primarily Orthodox and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Netzah Yehuda Battalion during a swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall, Jerusalem, June 11, 2025.

(photo credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) 

There were heated exchanges during committee discussions on the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription bill on Wednesday, as the IDF warned MKs that it had a major manpower shortage.

Ahead of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on conscription, IDF Manpower Directorate head Maj.-Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa stressed the urgency of conscripting more soldiers due to a major lack of manpower, in a meeting at the Knesset’s State Control Committee.

“The operational need has risen to 12,000 additional soldiers, 7,000 of them combat soldiers, the rest in technology and combat support,” Bar Kalifa told the panel.

Bar Kalifa spoke on the various initiatives and programs created to integrate haredim into the military. However, he also addressed the issue of draft evasion, saying,  “You don’t want us investing massive resources in building bases and brigades for haredim when we don’t know how many will actually come.

IDF soldiers operate in Gaza City, September 17, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

IDF warns of massive manpower shortages

“Only 3,000 haredi soldiers were recruited from two full draft cycles,” Bar Kalifa explained. “That is why I say clearly: I need more soldiers.”

Several rounds of meetings on the bill to enforce the haredi conscription bill have taken place since Likud MK Boaz Bismuth was appointed chairperson of the committee in July.

Bismuth replaced Likud MK Yuli Edelstein as the committee’s chair following the controversy surrounding the negotiations regarding Edelstein’s proposal, which led to the departure of the two haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, from the government.

Opposition MKs have expressed much criticism of Bismuth’s new work on the bill, which has made various revisions to it.

Many opposition MKs have said that the previous outline that Edelstein had drafted for the bill was far more suited to the present realities of the war.

They have also criticized starting new work on the legislation after over 40 meetings on the conscription law had taken place when Edelstein chaired the committee.

After Edelstein left Wednesday’s committee meeting discussing the bill, he posted a video expressing the urgency to pass a bill to conscript haredim to the IDF.

“I just got out of another discussion at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the sections of the conscription law that I have already held meetings on,” Edelstein said.

There is “no time to waste,” Edelstein said, underscoring that this is especially true as the operation in the Gaza Strip deepens.

Bismuth also clashed with Omri Ronen, an activist in the Brothers and Sisters in Arms organization for reservist men and women.

Ronen was forcefully removed from the discussion when Bismuth told him to “get out” after Ronen continued speaking despite being told not to interrupt.

“Why won’t you let me speak?” Ronen said. “I’ve come here already six times. On October 7, my grandmother was murdered in Kfar Aza. Listen to me now.”

The two continued arguing across the table until Knesset security guards forcefully removed him. MKs in the meeting expressed outrage toward Bismuth, saying he was preventing freedom of speech.

Keshet Neev

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-867831

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