An overwhelming majority of Israelis support ending the Gaza war in return for the release of all the hostages, but Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners would rather sacrifice Israeli soldiers on the altar of endless war
On Monday afternoon, while driving my car through the streets of Tel Aviv, I happened to turn on the radio right as an hourly news bulletin began. The first news item was about a reservist who committed suicide, leaving behind a wife and four children – the fifth case of a soldier taking his own life in the past four weeks.
A friend of the soldier explained that he was haunted by things he had seen when identifying the dead bodies of civilians murdered by Hamas on October 7. The year 2024 saw the highest number of suicide cases among soldiers and reservists in more than a decade, and 2025 is already on pace to break that dismal record.
Next on the radio was a story about three young combat soldiers in the Nahal Brigade who refused to re-enter Gaza after already completing several rounds of fighting there since October 7, because of severe trauma they accumulated during the war. All of them lost close friends in the fighting. One was previously injured, went through rehabilitation, and then volunteered to join his unit again – only to realize his mental wounds were more difficult to overcome than the physical ones. The military, said the newscaster, was now planning to send all three of them to jail for refusing orders.
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That report was followed by another about the funeral of a soldier killed two days ago fighting in Gaza, and the heartbreaking words of his mother, who said that she “had a feeling” for several days that a knock on her door from the military, bearing bad news, was coming. There was also a casual reference to several soldiers injured in another incident. Then, finally, the fact that 50 hostages remain in the hands of Hamas in Gaza was brought up, and a short update about the difficulties in the negotiations to release them was followed by today and tomorrow’s weather forecast.
There wasn’t anything unique or unusual about this short news update – just another day in Israel’s “Forever War,” which began 662 days ago and seems to have no end in sight. But what this bulletin did represent was the growing crisis among the ranks of the Israeli military, as the war drags on, the burden placed on the soldiers becomes unbearable, and the original goals of the war – returning the hostages, ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza and creating better security conditions for Israeli communities along the border – seem to be drifting away.
‘Burning out’ human resources
The world’s attention these days is focused on the suffering of civilians in Gaza, the harrowing images of starving children and the looming threat of a humanitarian disaster. But while this subject is also being discussed in Israel, the main issue causing a change in Israelis’ approach toward the war, and strengthening the voices calling to end it, is the situation of the country’s soldiers – both the younger ones who are in the midst of their mandatory service, and the older reservists who have been called up again and again for the past 22 months.
Approximately 900 soldiers have died in the war so far; thousands have been wounded; and thousands more are suffering from symptoms of PTSD. The military says that on October 7, it already lacked thousands of soldiers and simply not having enough manpower to properly carry out all its duties – as was evident by its failure to protect the Gaza border.
The war itself, however, has only exacerbated the manpower problem. Reservists in combat units have been asked to serve hundreds of days, at a severe cost to their families, academic studies, businesses and careers. Young soldiers who were supposed to complete their service this year are being automatically called up once their release date arrives, and then sent back to Gaza for more fighting.
To some readers, this may sound trivial – after all, this is what happens during war. But Israel’s national security strategy, ever since the days of David Ben-Gurion, was built around striving for short and decisive wars. Due to the country’s small population, it relies on reservists whose absence from their regular lives disrupts the economy. There is an assumption that after the war is over, there will still be a need for many soldiers to perform routine security duties – and therefore, it isn’t a good idea to “burn out” the army’s human resources.
But under the Netanyahu government, this is exactly what’s been happening. It’s a direct result of the prime minister’s insistence to prolong the war, his refusal to sign a war-ending agreement that would lead to the release of all the hostages, and his failed effort to force Hamas to surrender by blocking aid from entering Gaza and pushing the territory toward mass starvation. An overwhelming majority of Israelis support ending the war in return for the release of all the hostages, but Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners oppose this, and demand instead to conquer all of Gaza, build Jewish settlements there and expel the Palestinian population.
What are they doing there?
Apart from the moral aspects of such a policy and the disastrous impact it would have on the Israeli hostages (who can only be released via a negotiated agreement), the plans that Netanyahu’s partners have for Gaza would make headlines like the one I heard yesterday more common. There would be more funerals of dead soldiers, more suicide cases born out of distress, and more refusals among the ranks – not for political or value-based reasons, but out of trauma and desperation.
To make things even worse, the same Netanyahu government that refuses to end the war in order to placate its far-right members is simultaneously promoting an outrageous and widely unpopular bill to exempt tens of thousands of young ultra-Orthodox men from military service to please the Haredi political parties. This further aggravates the soldiers and reservists on the front lines, who desperately need the army to recruit more fighters so that some of the weight is taken off their shoulders. Yet, they are watching in anger and disbelief as the government does the exact opposite.
The biggest question is whether this twisted reality will at some point lead to an outburst of rage. There were hints of that option over the weekend when Ilan Green, the father of a young soldier critically wounded in Gaza, gave an explosive interview on Channel 12, the most popular TV station in the country.
He spoke about his son’s life-threatening injury and of his recovery process in the hospital, before turning his guns on the Netanyahu government, accusing it of sacrificing the soldiers for political reasons. “We raised an amazing generation in this country,” he said. “Why are we killing them? Why are we destroying their lives?”
Green added that after October 7, he was proud of his two sons – the one who was later wounded, and a twin brother who also serves in a combat unit – for how they rushed to defend the country under attack. But over time, he explained, “I began to ask myself, what are we doing there in Gaza? Why is it taking so long?”
More and more Israelis are now asking these questions. The Netanyahu government, however, has nothing but terrible answers to offer.
Source: HAARETZ
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