Israeli Reserve Troops Warn of Mutiny Over IDF Budget Cuts
IDF reservists in Gaza are warning of a potential mutiny after Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir slashed service conditions and cut 20,000 troops from the roster. As combat engineers in Rafah face daily life-threatening missions, the "spit in the face" of budget cuts is pushing the reserve system to its breaking point.
Simmering discontent among Israel's reserve forces is threatening to boil over, as combat engineers deployed in the southern Gaza Strip say they are on the verge of open defiance over sweeping cuts to service conditions ordered by the military's top officer.
The unrest centers on a Heavy Machinery company from the 10th Reserve Brigade, whose soldiers are currently hunting Hamas cells and locating tunnels in Rafah, some of the most dangerous work in the 16-month-old war. The unit's members describe recent decisions by Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir as a "spit in the face," according to a report by Walla! News.
The outcry stems from two near-simultaneous moves that soldiers say have dramatically compounded the strain on those still serving. The IDF recently removed roughly 20,000 soldiers from the reserve roster, leaving the remaining 40,000 to absorb the full operational burden. At the same time, Gen. Zamir ordered a reduction in the number of officially recognized reserve days and canceled so-called refresher breaks, brief rest rotations that troops rely on to recover between deployments.
"We go out on life-threatening missions every day, facing IEDs and underground threats, not knowing if we'll return," one soldier told Walla!. "To have our rights and conditions cut now is a betrayal."
Reserve officers say the General Staff has effectively passed the problem down the chain of command, leaving battalion and company commanders to absorb the anger of exhausted troops without the resources to offer meaningful relief.
The internal crisis arrives against a backdrop of broader warnings about the sustainability of Israel's reserve model. Brig. Gen. Benny Ben-Ari, the IDF's chief reserve officer, cautioned at a business conference last week that the existing reserve framework was never designed for a prolonged war of this scale. He noted that after family stability, economic insecurity is the leading reason reservists stop reporting for duty.
"A reservist without occupational security simply won't show up," Gen. Ben-Ari said.
Israel has leaned heavily on its reserve forces since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, calling up hundreds of thousands of civilians for extended rotations in Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon. The depth of that mobilization has placed acute pressure on household finances and civilian careers, strains that military planners acknowledged were unsustainable even before the latest round of cuts.