By preventing the enlistment of chareidim, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government had been holding Israel back from achieving a decisive victory over Hamas in Gaza, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett charged.
In a detailed tweet, Bennett argued that Israel’s persistent military “stumbling in Gaza stemmed directly from government policy that deprived the IDF of the main tool required for victory: fighters.”
Bennett harshly criticized the “bombastic declarations from ministers [most of whom have never held a gun]” who had called for the complete conquest of Gaza, while “these same ministers were literally depriving the IDF of the soldiers needed to carry out the same mission,” stressing that “the IDF has been stretched beyond the limit” since October 7.
Stating that the IDF “is short 20,000 soldiers,” Bennett contended that continuous emergency mobilizations of reservists could not compensate for the lack of a broader enlistment base.
The military itself acknowledged facing a shortage of personnel and stated it required about 12,000 additional soldiers, with around 7,000 needed for combat units.
According to Bennett, the “solution” would have been to draft one-fifth of eligible chareidim, which “would free up our reservists to breathe so that when we really need them for a large-scale operation, they would be fit.”
However, Bennett lamented that no meaningful action had been taken, asserting that “the orders being sent are a bluff,” and accusing Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of “putting politics above the good of the country.”
At the time, around 70,000 chareidi men between the ages of 18 and 24 were eligible for military service but had not enlisted. Since July 2024, the IDF had issued 18,915 initial draft notices to members of the chareidi community, but according to the IDF, only 232 of those served had actually enlisted — just 57 of them in combat roles.
Last Wednesday, speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, who headed the chareidi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, acknowledged that although the army had set a goal of recruiting 4,800 chareidi soldiers during the 2024–2025 draft cycle, only 1,721 had joined so far.
“We set ourselves a target of 4,800 and we will not reach that. There is an upward trend here, but it is not sufficient and does not correspond to the very large operational need,” Dickstein admitted.

{Matzav.com Israel}