Israeli soldiers have warned that Benjamin Netanyahu’s prolonged war in Gaza, marked by relentless bloodshed and strategic confusion, is driving the army to the brink of disintegration, while failed plans and deepening societal divisions expose the regime’s growing desperation.
A group of Israeli troops voiced alarm that the Gaza offensive, pursued without clear objectives, is steadily eroding morale and discipline.
According to Israel’s Maariv newspaper, occupation forces complained that the Netanyahu cabinet was sacrificing the military to maintain political illusions, while exempting tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men from service.
“The cabinet sends us into Gaza while extremist Haredi communities are free from any duty,” several soldiers told Maariv.
They warned that this double standard, imposed under pressure from rabbis and sectarian politicians, is burdening combat units to the point of collapse.
Dan Aron, an Israeli soldier deployed in Gaza, told Yedioth Ahronoth, “This attritional warfare is breaking the army and will end in total collapse.”
He also stressed that the blanket exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men have intensified the strain on secular soldiers.
Former operations chief Israel Ziv admitted that Israeli forces remain under extreme pressure, while Hamas fighters continue to operate and stage ambushes across Gaza.
Israeli media outlets further acknowledged a severe manpower crisis that has forced commanders to redeploy traumatized soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress.
Al Jazeera reported that in response to widespread draft evasion, the military is now tightening psychiatric exemptions to keep troops on the battlefield.
Previously, the army routinely released psychologically unfit soldiers, but after months of escalating losses, commanders are re-mobilizing them to fill ranks.
This approach underscores the desperation to maintain troop levels, as efforts to impose conscription on ultra-Orthodox communities have failed, compounding the burden on reservists and mentally ill personnel.
Yedioth Ahronoth described Gaza as the “capital of Israel’s delusions,” a proving ground for doomed policies that collapse shortly after implementation.
The newspaper linked the proposed “humanitarian camp” in southern Gaza to earlier failed schemes to force civilians to abandon support for Hamas through economic coercion and collective punishment.
According to the analysis, every new initiative is premised on the fantasy that military force and economic leverage can reshape Palestinian society.
“Gaza has become the laboratory for these empty ideas, none of which survive contact with reality,” the piece observed.
The commentary noted that 21 months of war have buried countless failed concepts, including the belief that brute force alone could shatter Hamas or force it to surrender.
Such illusions have resurfaced repeatedly, most recently in plans by generals to create media spectacles in northern Gaza, with no substantive results.
These strategies, the author argued, reflect the same bankrupt worldview that collapsed on October 7, when Israel’s illusions about containing Palestinian resistance were shattered.
The writer cautioned that promises of improved living conditions will not persuade Gazans to capitulate or relocate to camps.
In a stark admission, the piece concluded that current policies are rooted not in strategic logic but in radical ideological fantasies about redeeming Israel through total territorial control.
The analysis warned that most Israelis neither understand nor support these aims, while the cabinet refuses to detail the consequences of permanent occupation.
Michael Milshtein, head of Palestinian studies at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center, wrote that even if the war ends through negotiation, Israel will pay a heavy price and must confront the internal contradictions it long ignored.
