The New Yorker magazine has documented testimonies of reserve soldiers who participated in the fighting in the Gaza Strip, and conveyed testimonies that showed a clear decline in supporting military operations between this group, which constitutes about 70% of the strength of the Israeli army.
The magazine quoted an Israeli reserve soldier – called Nir – as saying that when the war began on Gaza, “the people jumped and those who did not serve the reserves for a decade and wanted to fight.”
However, with the continuation of the war and the expansion of the battles, Nir – who is preparing to respond to another emergency summons – stressed that “the situation is very bad, and everyone is exhausted.”
Nir – who describes himself as supportive of the right – said that his unit witnessed during his previous period of summoning the presence of about 60% of those who were called, but the number now decreased to less than 50%.
He explained that he is now sharing the same ideas that the families of detainees have repeatedly expressed, “Military pressure is exposing the detainees at risk, and a negotiating deal only will secure their release.”
Nir did not hide his dissatisfaction with the current situation, and said, “I have no reason to serve now except in solidarity with my colleagues. I feel shy about my government of what this country has become.”
In turn, Eran Tamir – a pedestrian soldier who served in 4 fighting rounds during 18 months – took a resolution of the option of Nir when he decided not to respond to the summons directed by the Benjamin Netanyahu government to tens of thousands of reserve soldiers during the past week in preparation for the expansion of operations in Gaza.
Tamir sent an open message published by the Israeli website “Walla”, saying, “They will say that this is an effort to liberate the hostages, and it is a war of survival or resurrection, and this time Hamas will be defeated, this is deception, from the project rejecting a war whose declared goals are a complete lie, from the project rejecting a war that is the lowest moral point for us as a country.”
And Tamir returned from a trip to the United States immediately after the October 7, 2023 attack, and was among about 300,000 Israelis who came as part of the mobilization of reserves in the largest recruitment process since the 1973 war.
Tamir says that his mother begged him at the time not to go.
“New Yorker” explained that the former soldiers usually serve up to 54 days distributed over 3 years, and indicated that the response to the summons was always in great proportions, “the mandatory military service for men and women – encoded in Israeli cultural acid”, but the situation is now different, as “the soldiers argue that their service to the country is achieving better if they do not fight.”
Although an Israeli army spokesman recently confirmed that the army has a “sufficient human force to carry out its duties”, a report for the newspaper “Yediot Aharonot” reported that the chief of staff of the army, Eyal Zamir, warned in a closed meeting that he was suffering a significant shortage of soldiers, and could not implement the government’s targets in Gaza.
One of the reserve soldiers – who ended his military service, called Yair, says that he gradually lost his belief in the issue, adding, “I see the goals of the war become blurry, and there is a gap between what is happening on the ground and slogans about the return of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
Auri Arad Al -Mallah, the 73 -year -old, confirmed that he heard from many young people like Yair looking for advice whether they should continue to respond to the summons, and said that he does not tell them what they should do, and instead he tells them what he hoped to do in their position “rejection.”
Arad explained that he had been captured for 6 weeks by the Egyptian forces in the 1973 war, and said, “The main thing that made me stand up is my knowledge – not faith, but knowledge – that the country will do everything to return me.”
The seventieth man sees in the decision of Israel to retract the agreement with Hamas and expand its military operations in Gaza, abandoning the detainees, which means “losing the spirit of the country”, and said that the number of innocent Palestinians killed by Israel has become impossible to explain or ignore, adding, “The war has led to the decline in Israeli morals and the fragmentation of Israeli society.”
“New Yorker” confirms that only 35% of the Israelis believe that the continuation of the fighting in Gaza is in the interest of the country, and 53% of them believe that it is driven by personal motives for Netanyahu, but Netanyahu’s partners in the rule of extremist nationalists threatened to bring down the government if he ended the war.
