Israel's main opposition leader Yair Lapid has accused the government of steering the country towards a "security disaster" because of a shortage of combat soldiers.
"The IDF is stretched to the limit and beyond. The government is leaving the army wounded out on the battlefield," Lapid said in a televised statement on Thursday, echoing a warning delivered a day earlier by military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir to the security cabinet, according to Israeli media reports.
"The government is sending the army into a multi-front war without a strategy, without the necessary means, and with far too few soldiers," Lapid said.
Media reports quoted Zamir as telling the security cabinet that "the IDF is on the verge of collapse".
Commenting on the troop shortage in a televised briefing on Thursday, military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said that "more combat soldiers are needed" on a range of fronts, notably in Lebanon.
"On the Lebanese front, the forward defensive zone that we are creating requires additional IDF forces," Defrin said, also mentioning increased needs in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Syria.
Lapid said that Zamir told the cabinet that he had reservists doing sixth and seventh rotations.
"These reservists are worn out and exhausted and can no longer meet our security challenges," Lapid said.
"The army does not have enough soldiers for its missions."
Military will 'collapse in on itself'
Lapid called for drafting men from the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community, who since the creation of Israel in 1948 have been exempted from military service.
Military service is mandatory in Israel, but under a ruling established at the country's creation — when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community — men who devote themselves full-time to the study of sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto pass.
"The government must stop being cowardly, immediately halt all funding for Haredi draft dodgers, send the military police after deserters, and draft the Haredim without hesitation," Lapid said.
Zamir reportedly warned that the military will "collapse in on itself," as it faces mounting resistance from Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel has killed hundreds of people, uprooted over a million and sent troops in a stated mission to occupy southern parts.
"I am raising 10 red flags before you," Zamir told ministers, according to Channel 13 news.
"The IDF now needs a conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service," he said. "Before long, the IDF will not be ready for its routine missions and the reserve system will not hold."
Israel has opened multiple warfronts in the Middle East by attacking Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza, and occasionally carrying out strikes and incursions into Syria, in breach of agreed ceasefire deals.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said on Thursday that two soldiers were killed during its invasion in southern Lebanon.
This brings to four the number of Israeli soldiers killed there, after the military said two were killed on March 8.
Hezbollah has claimed to have conducted a series of ambushes against invading Israeli troops and destroying many Merkava tanks.
