The Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, conducted a field tour and situation assessment today (Wednesday) in the Western Galilee sector with the Northern Command Commander, Major General Ori Gordin, and the Commander of the 146th Division, Brigadier General Yiftach Nurkin. Additionally, there is dialogue with the brigade commanders and reserve battalion commanders operating under the division in the ground offensive in Lebanon and in defense. In his remarks, Halevi alluded to the issue of drafting the ultra-Orthodox, claiming that "the IDF needs to be bigger."
To all reservists, I understand the costs, family, employment, the burden here. "Now we need solutions," he said. "First, we will maintain the support, whoever comes, we– the formal system– need to provide solutions as well as recognition and compensation to the student, or to someone whose business was severely affected." This is what we are building, we are taking older reservists, establishing more frameworks so they can hold operational duties, and by doing this, we will significantly reduce the burden. They are really working on it and dealing with it every day. The IDF needs to be larger both in regular service and in reserves, and therefore we are establishing forces.
Halevi added and said that "there is a lot of public discourse about the Haredim as well. This week is the week of appreciation for the wounded. On Monday, I visited the wounded at Soroka Hospital. I met a soldier from the Givati Brigade there, he was injured in Rafah, took a bullet in the upper part of his thigh, not a good injury but he'll be fine. Haredi, Bnei Brak, wanted to enlist, his family didn't support him at first, but from the moment he started, they embraced him wholeheartedly. They were with him even before he got injured, certainly after he got injured.
"I'm telling you, our question is how do we do many more like these." "This is what is socially right," the Chief of Staff concluded. "I think that when we manage to evolve from this, from the war, from the point where we understood that the IDF needs to be bigger, there might also be some very good social correction."