As IDF calls up 60,000 reservists, Israel wrestles with motivation, service, and sacrifice

Israel has always wrestled with questions of motivation, service, and sacrifice. Yet when tested, the country has rediscovered its resolve.

The IDF on Wednesday announced plans to call up some 60,000 reservists over the next two weeks in preparation for a large-scale assault on Gaza City.

News of the call-ups will spark speculation about battle fatigue among reservists and their families, how many will report, and how strong their motivation will be. Inevitably, there will be comparisons to the immediate aftermath of October 7, 2023, when some 360,000 reservists were called up in the largest mobilization since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Then, the response was overwhelming. Israelis cut short trips abroad, postponed studies, left new jobs, and rushed to their units. The figure most often cited was 130% turnout, meaning scores of men and women not even called up reported for duty. Some reservists told of a lack of weapons to hand out to all who showed up.

Fast forward nearly two years. The enthusiasm has faded. The war drags on, 50 hostages remain in Gaza, and questions about leadership and strategy weigh heavily. Reservists, who have already put their civilian lives on hold multiple times since October 7, are being asked to do so again.

Some openly ask whether their sacrifice was squandered as the IDF returns to areas they have already fought in. Others complain that the war lacks a clear endgame, is being waged for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival, or that it is unconscionable to be called up again while the government seeks to exempt tens of thousands of yeshiva students from service.

Yet alongside this disenchantment runs another current: among regular soldiers, the 18- and 19-year-olds who make up the backbone of the IDF, motivation is surging. Surveys show 95% of draft-age youth who are going into the IDF actually do want to serve, with nearly three-quarters of eligible young men volunteering for combat units. Among women, too, more than half of those qualified now express a desire to serve in fighting units, a record high.

Israel in 2025: A country weary yet determined

This contrast – between exhausted reservists and energized conscripts – says much about Israel in August 2025. It is a country weary, yet determined; cynical about politics, yet convinced the war against Hamas is existential; fatigued, but far from broken.

The complaints of reservists and their families are as understandable as they are familiar. After the Second Lebanon War in 2006, after Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and after shorter Gaza campaigns, complaints about low reservist motivation abounded. Numbers were cited illustrating declining turnout, commanders fretted about morale, and commentators wondered whether Israeli society was tiring of seemingly endless wars.

But time and again, those predictions have proven exaggerated.

When the orders are issued, the reservists – perhaps not at 130% but at solid levels – report for duty. They may curse the government, complain about the lack of vision, demand an exit strategy, or gripe about a system that exempts large parts of the population, but when the call comes, they lace up their boots.

Before Operation Gideon’s Chariots in May, there was concern that turnout would be no more than 60%. While the IDF does not publicize these figures, the actual percentage far exceeded that, though it was short of the 130% of October 2023. In a Knesset committee meeting in May, Brig.-Gen. Rami Abudraham, then chief of staff of the Ground Forces, put the figure at “over 75%.”

Considering the number of days many reservists have served since October 7, often more than 300, that is impressive. Here lies the paradox: The frustration is real, but so is the commitment. Israelis argue, protest, and grumble – and then, for the most part, show up.

If the reservists represent the weariness of a society carrying the same burden repeatedly, the regular soldiers represent its renewal.

For years, the IDF worried about declining motivation. An IDF survey in 2019 showed only 64% of inductees were interested in combat units, down from 80% in 2010. The trend seemed clear: Individualism, hi-tech aspirations, and a culture that glorified private success over collective sacrifice were eroding the combat ethos.

Then came October 7. The Hamas massacre jolted the country and upended assumptions. Suddenly, teenagers who once sought hi-tech tracks like cyber or intelligence saw combat service as the most meaningful contribution they could make.

The numbers are dramatic. According to an IDF survey on motivation from January, reported in Israel Hayom in May, nearly three-quarters of men and more than half of women going into the army said they wanted to serve in combat. This year, 80% of those invited to often-grueling tryouts for elite units showed up, compared to just 55% before the war.

This is a strategic asset. While much of the West struggles to fill its military ranks, in Israel – now in its longest war since 1948 – young people are stepping forward in the greatest numbers in decades, with the glaring exception of most haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and Arab youth. That willingness speaks to a national spirit that, even battered and divided, remains strong.

It would be easy to read these stories as contradictory: a tired generation of reservists vs a motivated crop of teenagers. But they are better seen as two sides of the same coin.

Reservists’ fatigue reflects the price of endurance: careers disrupted, businesses shuttered, families strained. Their questions – “Where is this going?” – are not the complaints of whiners or shirkers but of citizens who have already given more than most democracies ever ask.

Conscripts’ enthusiasm reflects the renewal of purpose. For them, the current war is not an endless cycle but the defining national challenge of their generation, a moment to prove themselves and their turn to safeguard the country.

Together, these realities reveal a society waging war with fatigue and resolve. Israel’s wars have always been fought by both its fathers and its sons, sometimes literally together. Today, the fathers are growing weary, even as the sons remain eager. And both understand their service is essential.

What does this divergence reveal about how Israel views this war?

First, despite fatigue, most Israelis still see the war as unavoidable. The reservists may protest, but few refuse outright. Numbers called up are still met, even if the percentages no longer dazzle. Israelis may despair of their leaders, but they do not despair of their country.

Second, October 7 reminded Israel of its vulnerability. That day shattered the illusion that missile defenses and technological superiority meant security or that the country’s enemies had given up on the dream of trying to destroy the Jewish state. The current generation of conscripts has internalized those lessons and shown that it understands that the state’s survival depends on them.

Finally, for all its divisions, Israeli society still understands the need to fight to survive. Protests continue, politics roil, families of hostages rage at the government. Yet beneath it all lies a common understanding: If Israel does not fight, it does not exist.

Israel has always wrestled with questions of motivation, service, and sacrifice. From the earliest days, critics warned that prosperity and modernity would sap the pioneering spirit. Yet, when tested, the country has rediscovered its resolve.

The current call-up reflects that pattern. Yes, reservists are weary, and many are angry at the government. But the younger generation’s determination shows that the national spirit has not been extinguished. It has been passed down, renewed, and even strengthened.

That is perhaps the ultimate takeaway: Israel remains a society where the collective still matters. The reservists grumble; the new conscripts burn with youthful zeal. Together, they form an army fighting a war barbarically thrust upon the country – unwanted, seemingly endless – but one it cannot yet set aside and one both those called back and those just called up know it cannot afford to lose.