Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Get NPR+ Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Embedded Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop Get NPR+ Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Israel is facing a shortage of army reservists Israel is facing a substantial shortage in troop numbers as reservists, exhausted from war, are failing to turn up for duty. Experts say Israel's multiple war fronts are putting a huge mental, political, and financial strain on reservists. Middle East Israel is facing a shortage of army reservists August 5, 20264:22 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered Emily Feng Israel is facing a shortage of army reservists Listen · 5:05 5:05 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5902952/nx-s1-9876679" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Israel is facing a substantial shortage in troop numbers as reservists, exhausted from war, are failing to turn up for duty. Experts say Israel's multiple war fronts are putting a huge mental, political, and financial strain on reservists. Sponsor Message Transcript
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Israel's army is warning of imminent collapse among some of its units because of an extreme shortage of troops, including among Israel's reservist army. Hundreds of reservists have publicly ignored summons for duty. Experts say that Israel's multiple war fronts are putting a huge mental and financial strain on fighters. NPR's Emily Feng has this story.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Frustration boiled over into anger among Israeli veterans this past July. They were in Israel's parliament to protest a proposed enlistment exemption for the country's ultra-Orthodox community.
SHAMIR BENITA: (Speaking Hebrew).
FENG: "We were your bullet shields," former soldier Shamir Benita complains.
BENITA: (Speaking Hebrew).
FENG: "And upon our return, you allowed our families to bear all the punishment of the war," Benita laments.
OREN TENE: I think that Israel is very much a post-traumatic nation.
FENG: Dr. Oren Tene is a psychiatrist whose specialties include treating soldiers like Benita, who now advocates for other veterans with PTSD. Tene treats people who go through repeated traumatic experiences, like reservists called up again and again in the constant wars that Israel's been in since a deadly Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
TENE: People find it hard to even connect to these basics of life after this terrible but very exciting experience they encounter for so long. It's not like a week of battle and going back. It's month and month and month.
FENG: More than a third of reservists are parents. Many are on duty for more than 100 days a year, and they leave families and businesses behind when at war.
SHARON LEVIN: We've had families who've contacted us because they didn't have - they didn't know what to do.
FENG: This is Sharon Levin, a director at Paamonim, which provides free financial counseling services. More and more of the people her organization helps are reservists and their families.
LEVIN: It's how to carry on life when you know that you're going to be in the reserves for, like, 60 days or 90 days a year, and you're in and out. So how do we deal with that kind of uncertainty?
FENG: For Levin, the work supporting reservists is also personal.
LEVIN: At one point, a couple of months ago, I had 4 out of my 5 kids in the army.
FENG: Israel is now cutting back the number of reservists it calls up. But the current military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, warned this spring of, quote, "red flags," - a shortage of about 12,000 full-time soldiers. Major General Uzi Dayan, once head of the military's planning branch, is familiar with mobilization issues.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR BANGING)
UZI DAYAN: OK.
FENG: First, though, he proudly shows me his lush backyard where one of his daughters got married last year right before the Twelve-Day War with Iran.
DAYAN: In 1 o'clock in the morning, we went to the shelter. And the groom is a pilot, and he went in this very night, he flew to Tehran.
FENG: So when I asked him about Israel's soldiers being tired, he says tough. Growing up, his fellow soldiers always asked, until when can we stop fighting?
DAYAN: And, you know, what was the answer of my generation? As much as needed.
FENG: At the turn of the millennium, Israel was withdrawing from war fronts. But over the past three years, Israel's conflicts and wars have expanded in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and this year with Iran. So Dayan believes Israel's army needs to grow - boost recruitment of full-time soldiers, forcibly enlist the ultra-Orthodox citizens of Israel who are exempted now from service. And he says this is all necessary because he wants to reoccupy Gaza.
DAYAN: The only way to deter terror organization is to threat its own existence, its basic existence.
FENG: There are critics in Israel of this war-first approach - influential ones. Among them, Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet Intelligence Agency. After years of surveilling Palestinians and Israelis, he came to believe that force cannot be the only answer to eliminating threats like Hamas.
AMI AYALON: You cannot deter a person or a group of people if they believe that they have nothing to lose. Unless we shall create a way for them to understand that they can achieve the end of occupation and a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they will not surrender.
FENG: But support for this view in Israel of a Palestinian state existing next to the state of Israel is vanishingly small now. Support for continued war against Israel's enemies in Lebanon and Iran is overwhelmingly high. But the question remains, who will fight these wars?
Emily Feng, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOLLY LEWIS' "CRUSHED VELVET (FEAT. THEE SACRED SOULS)") Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{310:function(e,n,o){o.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([o.e(1),o.e(2),o.e(3),o.e(4),o.e(80)]).then((e=>{o(15),o(769),o(155),o(176),o(93),o(447),o(254),o(128),o(130),o(754),o(175),o(755),o(255),o(78),o(773)}).bind(null,o)).catch(o.oe)},782:function(e,n,o){e.exports=o(310)}},[[782,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();