JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL

The Israeli army faces “the worst manpower crisis in its history” amid a severe shortage in personnel, Israeli reserve general and military analyst Itzhak Brik said Sunday.

In an opinion piece in the daily Maariv, Brik said thousands of officers and non-commissioned officers avoided service in recent months, either by refusing call-ups or declining to renew their contracts.

During two years of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the military lost 923 troops and saw 6,399 wounded, while roughly 20,000 soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress, according to Israeli media citing army data.

Under heavy military censorship, the army faces accusations of concealing higher losses to preserve morale.

Brik wrote that many officers sought immediate discharge and younger recruits refused to sign long-term contracts, creating a wide shortage of professional staff across the military.

The sharp decline in manpower now undermines equipment maintenance and the operation of combat systems, he added.

The military analyst warned the situation could soon lead to the army “losing its ability to function entirely.”

He blamed successive chiefs of staff for “poor decisions” in recent years, including deep personnel cuts and shorter service terms – three years for men and two years for women – which he said created “huge gaps that cannot be repaired quickly.”

These gaps “pushed experienced professionals out of service while leaving unprepared personnel in sensitive roles incapable of dealing with the challenges of the current battlefield,” he said.

Brik said the army’s manpower division has operated “without professionalism or responsibility” for years and ignored core problems in managing human resources and assessing its needs.

The military suffers from “information blindness” because of outdated systems and fragmented databases, he added.

Brik warned the manpower crisis could evolve into “complete paralysis” of the Israeli army.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 171,000 people in a brutal war that has left much of the enclave in ruins.