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THE ISRAELI ARMY IS FACING ITS BIGGEST REFUSAL CRISIS IN DECADES  
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Meron Rapoport

972 Magazine
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_ Over 100,000 Israelis have reportedly stopped showing up for
reserve duty. While their reasons differ, the scale demonstrates the
war’s waning legitimacy. _

Israeli soldiers seen on the border with Lebanon, northern Israel,
December 3, 2024, photo Ayal Margolin/Flash90

 

No one can state precise numbers. No political party or leader calls
for it explicitly. But anyone who has spent time at anti-government
protests or on Hebrew-language social media in recent weeks knows it
to be true: it is becoming increasingly legitimate to refuse to report
for military service in Israel — and not only among the radical
left
[[link removed]].

In the lead-up to the war, talk of refusal — or more precisely,
“ceasing to volunteer” for the reserves — had become
a significant feature of the mass protests
[[link removed]] against
the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul. At the height of those
protests, in July 2023, over 1,000 pilots and Air Force
personnel declared
[[link removed]] that they would stop
showing up for duty unless the legislation was halted, leading to
warnings from senior military officials and the head of the Shin Bet
that the judicial overhaul endangered national security. 

The Israeli right continues to argue to this day that those refusal
threats not only encouraged Hamas to attack Israel but also weakened
the army. But in truth, all the threats disappeared into the ether on
October 7, with the protesters overwhelmingly and enthusiastically
volunteering to enlist.

For 18 months, the vast majority of Israel’s Jewish population has
rallied around the flag in support of the onslaught on Gaza. But
particularly after the government decided to collapse the ceasefire
last month, cracks have started to appear. 

In recent weeks, the media has reported a significant decline in
soldiers showing up to reserve duty. Although the exact numbers are a
closely guarded secret, the army informed Defense Minister Israel Katz
in mid-March that the attendance rate stood at 80 percent, compared to
around 120 percent immediately after October 7. According to Kan
[[link removed]], Israel’s
national broadcaster, that number was a fudge: the true rate is closer
to 60 percent. Other reports speak of attendance rates of 50 percent
or lower, with some reserve units resorting to trying to recruit
soldiers
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social media.

[A crowd of friends, family, and activists holds a solidarity protest
in support of Ella Keidar Greenberg outside the Tel Hashomer
recruitment center, before she declares her refusal to enlist in the
Israeli army, March 19, 2025. (Oren Ziv)]
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A crowd of friends, family, and activists holds a solidarity protest
in support of Ella Keidar Greenberg outside the Tel Hashomer
recruitment center, before she declares her refusal to enlist in the
Israeli army, March 19, 2025. (Oren Ziv)
A crowd of friends, family, and activists holds a solidarity protest
in support of Ella Keidar Greenberg outside the Tel Hashomer
recruitment center, before she declares her refusal to enlist in the
Israeli army, March 19, 2025. (Oren Ziv)

“Refusal comes in waves, and this is the biggest wave since the
First Lebanon War in 1982,” Ishai Menuchin, one of the leaders of
the refuser movement Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit”) which was
founded during that war, told +972.

Like conscription into the regular forces at age 18, it is compulsory
for Israelis to serve in the reserves when summoned until the age of
40 (though this can vary depending on rank and unit). During wartime,
the army is heavily dependent on these forces.

At the start of the war, the army stated
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it had recruited around 295,000 reservists on top of the roughly
100,000 soldiers in regular service. If reports about 50-60 percent
attendance in the reserves are accurate, that means over 100,000
people have stopped showing up for reserve duty. “That’s a huge
number,” Menuchin noted. “It means the government will have a
problem continuing the war.”

“October 7 initially created a feeling of ‘Together we will
win,’ but that has now eroded,” said Tom Mehager, an activist who
refused to serve during the Second Intifada and now runs a social
media page
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posts videos of past refuseniks explaining their decision. “To
attack Gaza, three planes are enough — but refusal still draws red
lines. It forces the system to understand the limits of its power.”

‘Day after day, I see refusal declarations’

The majority of those defying enlistment orders appear to be what’s
known as “gray refusers” — people who have no real ideological
objection to the war but rather have grown demoralized, weary, or fed
up that it is dragging on for so long. Alongside them are a small but
growing minority of reservists who refuse on ethical grounds. 

According to Menuchin, Yesh Gvul has been in contact with over 150
ideological refusers since October 2023, while New Profile, another
organization supporting refuseniks, has dealt with several hundred
such cases. But whereas teenagers who refuse the compulsory draft for
ideological reasons are subject to prison sentences
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several months, Menuchin is aware of only one reservist who was
punished for their recent refusal — receiving a sentence of two
weeks of probation. 

“They’re afraid to put refusers in prison, because if they do, it
could bury the model of the ‘people’s army,’” he explained.
“The government understands this, and therefore it doesn’t push
too hard; it suffices with the army dismissing a few reservists, as if
that will solve the problem.”

[Israeli soldiers seen near the border with Syria, December 8, 2024.
(Michael Giladi/Flash90)]
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Israeli soldiers seen near the border with Syria, December 8, 2024.
(Michael Giladi/Flash90)
Israeli soldiers seen near the border with Syria, December 8, 2024.
(Michael Giladi/Flash90)

As a result, Menuchin finds it difficult to estimate the true scale of
this phenomenon. “During the Lebanon War, our assessment was that
for every refuser who went to prison, there were another eight to 10
ideological refusers,” he says. “So if 150 or 160 people have
declared that they won’t go to the army for ideological reasons,
it’s reasonable to estimate that there are at least 1,500
ideological refusers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg [given
the far larger number of non-ideological refusers].”

However, according to Yuval Green — who refused to continue serving
in Gaza after disobeying an order to set fire to a Palestinian home
[[link removed]],
and who now leads an anti-war movement called “Soldiers for the
Hostages [[link removed]]” with 220 reservists
signed on to its refusal statement — this binary categorization
doesn’t tell the whole story.

“There are more and more people who may not necessarily care about
Palestinians but no longer feel at peace with the goals of the war,”
he explained. “I call this ‘gray-ideological refusal.’ I have no
way of knowing how many there are, but I’m sure it’s a lot. 

“In the past, people I knew were really angry with me [for calling
for refusal],” Green continued. “Now I feel much more
understanding. We’ve become more relevant. The media is covering us;
we were invited to Channel 13 and Channel 11. Day after day, I see
refusal declarations.”

Recent examples abound. Last week, Haaretz published an op-ed
[[link removed]] by
the mother of a soldier who stated: “Our children will not fight in
a messianic war of choice.” Another op-ed
[[link removed]] in
the same newspaper by an anonymous soldier declared: “The current
war in Gaza is meant to buy political stability with blood. I will not
take part in it.”

Others are less explicit, but the effect is similar. In a recent
interview, former Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia stopped short
of endorsing refusal but called
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“civil disobedience.” On April 10, nearly 1,000 Air Force
reservists published
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open letter demanding a hostage deal that would end the war; they were
soon joined
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hundreds of reservists in the Navy and the elite intelligence squad
Unit 8200. Prime Minister Netanyahu responded
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refusal — even when it is said implicitly and in laundered
language.”

[Activists from Free Jerusalem protest against the war in Gaza,
Jerusalem, April 9, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)]
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Activists from Free Jerusalem protest against the war in Gaza,
Jerusalem, April 9, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Activists from Free Jerusalem protest against the war in Gaza,
Jerusalem, April 9, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

‘The legitimacy of the regime is in danger’

Yael Berda [[link removed]], a sociologist
at the Hebrew University and a left-wing activist, explained that the
declining willingness to show up for reserve duty stems first and
foremost from economic concerns. She referred to a recent survey
[[link removed]] by the Israeli
Employment Service which found that 48 percent of reservists reported
a significant loss of income since October 7, and 41 percent said they
were fired or forced to leave their jobs due to extended periods in
the reserves. 

Menuchin also attributes significant weight to economic factors, but
offers an additional explanation: “Israelis don’t want to feel
like suckers, and they’re now reaching a point where they feel
they’re being exploited. They see others getting exemptions, and
they wager that if something happens to them, no one will support them
or their families. There’s a feeling of abandonment: they see the
families of the hostages crowdfunding just to survive. The bottom line
is that the state isn’t really there, and that’s becoming clear to
more and more Israelis.

“There’s a lot of despair,” Menuchin continued. “People
don’t know where this is heading. You see the rush for foreign
passports — even before October 7 — and the search for
‘better’ places to emigrate to. There’s a growing retreat into
concern for one’s own interest group. And above all, the hostages
are not being brought back.”

When it comes to ideological refusal, Berda identifies several
categories. “One type of refusal stems from ‘What I saw in
Gaza,’ but that’s a minority,” she explained. “Another type is
loss of faith in the leadership, especially when the government
didn’t do everything it could to bring the hostages back. There’s
an intolerable gap between what the government said it was doing and
what it actually did. And this gap causes people to lose trust.”

An additional category, Berda continued, is “disgust with the
discourse of sacrifice” promoted by the religious far-right, led by
the likes of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. “It’s a kind of
backlash against the settlers’ narrative that says it’s good to
sacrifice your life for something bigger,” Berda explained.
“People are reacting to the notion that the collective is more
important than the individual by saying: ‘The state’s goals are
important, but I have my own life.’”

_Meron Rapoport [[link removed]] is an
editor at Local Call._

_+972 Magazine [[link removed]] is an independent,
online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli
journalists. Founded in 2010, our mission is to provide in-depth
reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine.
The name of the site is derived from the telephone country code that
can be used to dial throughout Israel-Palestine._

_Our core values are a commitment to equity, justice, and freedom of
information. We believe in accurate and fair journalism that
spotlights the people and communities working to oppose occupation and
apartheid, and that showcases perspectives often overlooked or
marginalized in mainstream narratives._

_Want +972’s most important stories sent directly to your inbox?
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* refuseniks
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