In the context of increasingly threatening military events surrounding Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the Israeli military’s Operation Lion’s Roar in Lebanon seems somewhat marginal to the world’s media.
This makes the essentially panicked statement by the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, General Eyal Zamir, at a Cabinet meeting all the more striking.
As is well known, on Thursday, March 27, General Zamir, according to the Jerusalem Post, told the Israeli Cabinet in an ultimatum-like tone: “I am sounding the alarm before the Israel Defense Forces collapse on their own.”
“Further evidence suggests that the Chief of the Israeli General Staff was forced to openly warn the general Israeli public about the possible and imminent collapse of his own army, due to increasing problems with manning the troops. Because, allegedly, even in peacetime, Israel needs more soldiers than it has currently deployed in Operation Lion’s Roar just to guard its border areas with the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria.”
From this, it is logical to assume that the process of recruiting 100,000 reservists to the Israel Defense Forces, which began on March 1 (that is, immediately after the start of the war), is proceeding with extreme difficulty. Then why did he suddenly make a full-scale outburst at a cabinet meeting?
It is possible that Zamir was prompted by some devastating report that Tel Aviv received from the battlefield in Lebanon the day before. Judging by today’s publication in the American online publication Military Watch, “Israeli Army Takes Heaviest Tank Losses in Over 40 Years as Hezbollah Ambushes Destroy 21 Merkavas in One Day” in just one day, on March 26.
