Lack of manpower: IDF reservists service jumps from 25 to 136 days a year

Service time for reservists in the IDF has jumped from a pre-war average of 25-42 days over one to three years, depending on the role, to around 136 days per year for combat fighters during wartime.

Reservist commanders are serving even longer in 2023-2024, at an average of 168 days per year, with certain soldiers serving on the front for around 142 days. Reservists serving in Home Front desk jobs average around 121 days per year.

Military sources said they hope that in the coming year – presuming the war ends or stabilizes at a level that does not require significant new invasions – reservist duty could drop back down to 70-72 days. That would include two weeks of training, preparation, and organization in the field.

Although the IDF said that 85% of reservists are still showing up for duty, The Jerusalem Post understands that many specific units are at much lower numbers, some even close to 50%, a potential threat to the military being able to continue the multiple missions assigned to it by the government as part of the ongoing war.

All of this takes place as the government has been stuck on legislation to officially and permanently increase service length for mandatory service soldiers from 32 to 36 months and for reservists and career officers, as well as being stuck on legislation to pressure haredim (ultra-Orthodox) to join the IDF in higher numbers.

Those opposing the legislation, both within the coalition and the opposition, especially former defense minister Yoav Gallant, have argued that it is morally repugnant to increase the length of service on the rest of the country, which at least has been performing significant service until now, when the vast majority of haredim still have never served a day.

Military sources suggested separating the issue; since the war started, around 800 soldiers have been killed, 5,346 have been wounded, and 11,944 have been examined for potential medical issues from battle.

This means that the IDF needs at least 7,000 new soldiers to replace those already lost – and probably more since many of those examined may have post-traumatic stress disorder and may not continue to serve.

Of the soldiers killed in the war, 385 (34%) have been reservists; 141 were mandatory service soldiers, and 268 were career officers Commanders among those killed include four colonels, five lieutenant colonels who commanded battalions, seven deputy battalion commanders, 63 company commanders, 20 deputy company commanders, and 67 platoon commanders.

These deaths have impacted 1,543 parents, 180 widows, 27 pregnant widows, 507 orphans, and 219 partners.

Based on all of this, military sources said that even if the IDF had gotten a 100% attendance rate from the 3,000 draft orders it issued to haredim this past summer – of whom only around 300 showed up – it would still have needed either thousands of more new soldiers or to extend the service of thousands of soldiers to cover the losses.

Pressed that the numbers were too large to maintain the fight and that this message should be passed on to the government, military sources pushed back, saying that it is the job of the military to find a way, any way, to achieve the war goals set by the government.

The IDF also said it had made strides in bringing back many of the around 70,000 reservists who had been off the rolls in late 2023 due to various non-medical exemptions.

On the brighter side – statistically – the IDF said it saw a 16% increase in draft numbers nationally, while the number of women in combat roles has jumped from 4,200 to 4,800. This is part of a longer process, given that female combat fighters were at only 3,600 in 2019, which itself was a jump from earlier years.

Within the different tracks inside the military, career officers are currently made up of 51% commissioned officers and 49% non-commissioned officers and are made up of around 70% men and 30% women.

The IDF said that it is still losing large numbers of career officers to the private sector because salaries are much higher there. Even within the public sector, the average commander’s salary sits at around NIS 16,000 per month, which is lower than the prisons at around NIS 18,000 per month and the police at around NIS 19,000 per month.

Sources said that this situation is yet another large danger to the IDF’s future. Despite this, the military did say that it has expended NIS 8.02 billion out of nine billion allocated for reservists.

These funds have covered a wide variety of items, such as replacing work salaries, general child care, child care during the holiday or summer periods, funds for students, paying for vacations, and paying for social services assistance.

If the government does not authorize continuing these funds past the coming year, a crisis could emerge because the number of reservist service days is still expected to be much larger than it was before 2023 – simply to fully guard the borders going forward.

More broadly speaking, the IDF said it has around 500,000 total soldiers, broken down into around 300,000 reservists, 42,000 career officers, and over 150,000 mandatory service soldiers.

The IDF showed statistics displaying that in some areas, its current staffing needs are down to 83% being filled and charting out how much growth it would need to refill those needs by around 2029.

In some specific technical fields or in the unit dealing with driving vehicles, staffing is down to 74% and 66%, respectively.