Army Chief Tells Religious Leaders Israel Still Lacks Thousands of Fighters, Will Expand Women’s Combat Roles

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir met on Tuesday with rabbis from the religious-Zionist yeshiva world to discuss the army’s manpower shortage amid the prolonged fighting. At the meeting, which also included Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai, Ground Forces Commander Maj. Gen. Nadav Lotan and other senior officers, the army laid out current operational challenges and the need to increase personnel in all combat sectors.

Zamir said the IDF is still short of thousands of fighters and needs every soldier, man and woman, to carry out its missions and consolidate battlefield gains. He also praised the yeshivot and pre-military academies for encouraging combat enlistment, saying their contribution has been significant for years and especially during the current war, when their students are among the first ranks in the fighting.

The central issue at the meeting was how to balance expanding women’s integration into combat roles with preserving the religious lifestyle of observant soldiers. Zamir said broadening women’s role in key combat positions is of “enormous operational importance” and that the army will keep advancing on this issue, but he stressed that any new frameworks must fully comply with the Joint Service Order in both routine and emergency situations. He added that the long war requires even stricter adherence to those regulations.

The rabbis, for their part, described the difficulties faced by observant soldiers during military service and called for every religious soldier to be able to serve according to his beliefs and values, under the principles of the Joint Service Order, which allows different groups to serve alongside one another. Zamir concluded that Israel has one army, the people’s army, and it must be able to contain different communities while enabling meaningful service for all parts of society.