The proposal, staunchly opposed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Israel Prison Service, will be discussed in another forum, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of leaking details about potential cabinet votes to the media, KAN reported Friday.
“Before and during the cabinet meeting, I saw briefings on Arutz Sheva, Israel Hayom, and other places about who supports and opposes the decision on Red Cross visits to prisons,” Netanyahu said during the cabinet meeting after standing up and accusing Ben-Gvir. He then removed the proposal for Red Cross visits from the agenda, to be discussed in another forum.
Sources indicate that this is the “humanitarian cabinet,” which consists of Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, and MK Arye Deri, which meets on occasion to discuss humanitarian aid being sent to Gaza.
What was the National Security proposal on Red Cross visits?
The proposal in question, put forward by the National Security Council, would have allowed Red Cross workers to visit terrorists in Israeli prisons. However, it was reportedly removed, due to the National Security Council understanding that it would never gain a majority of support from the ministers.
The proposal had two major points.
International Red Cross vehicles drive by on the day of the handover of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander to the International Red Cross, in the Gaza Strip May 12, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed)
First, in accordance with Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) recommendations, it would be prohibited for the Red Cross workers to visit or receive information about prisoners from Gaza, as well as prisoners affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Secondly, the Red Cross would be allowed to visit all other terrorist prisoners, subject to restrictions from security officials.
This was meant to be a balance High Court of Justice rulings and international obligations with the need to tighten restrictions on terrorists linked to the main groups in Gaza.
However, Ben-Gvir had still voiced his opposition.
“While Hamas continues to hold hostages in Gaza, it is impossible for terrorists to benefit from visits and preferential conditions,” he said. “The National Security Council’s proposal is a serious mistake that signals weakness to the enemy.”
The Israeli military destroyed another building of the Islamic University in Gaza City on Sunday, saying Hamas had used the facility to monitor Israeli soldiers and plan attacks.
Videos published by both Israeli and Palestinian media showed the building being struck and collapsing, and the military confirmed the attack. The claims could not be independently verified.
According to Palestinians, displaced Gazans had been sheltering on the grounds of the university, which has been targeted several times during the nearly two-year war.
The Israeli military had issued a fresh evacuation order for parts of Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood and the port area, urging civilians to move immediately to the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” further south.
Israeli forces also hit the al-Kawthar residential tower, saying Hamas militants had installed intelligence-gathering equipment and observation posts there. The allegation could not be independently confirmed. Video footage showed the high-rise collapsing.
Israel has flattened dozens of high-rises in Gaza City, asserting that the Palestinian militant group Hamas uses residential towers for military purposes.
Israeli media reported that around 280,000 people have fled Gaza City, once home to roughly 1 million residents. The Hamas-run media office put the figure at about 350,000. Many civilians remain reluctant to relocate to designated safe zones, citing past Israeli attacks on such areas.
Israeli officials have said the airstrikes are part of preparations for a deeper ground offensive aimed at dismantling Hamas units believed to be based in Gaza City.
But the conservative daily Israel Hayom reported on Sunday significant resistance within the army’s top ranks to the planned assault. Senior officials warned that, especially after the recent attack in Qatar, Israel could be endangering its national security “in an unprecedented way.”
Security officials have questioned whether the operation can achieve its stated goal of destroying Hamas, warning it could last for months, jeopardize the lives of remaining hostages, cause heavy Israeli military losses and further isolate Israel internationally because of the images of destruction and civilian casualties emerging from Gaza.
The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 abducted. Israel says 48 hostages remain in Gaza, 20 of them believed to be alive.
The Hamas-run health authority in Gaza says more than 64,800 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The tally does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but the figures are regarded as broadly credible by the United Nations.
Large parts of the densely populated territory have been devastated by Israeli bombardments. Critics accuse Israel of war crimes and, in some cases – including Spain’s government – of genocide. Israel insists it is acting in self-defence.
Ambulances and emergency vehicles have been put out of service due to shelling, and destruction by Israeli bulldozers during incursions into several cities. According to an employee of the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s ambulance and emergency services at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, a significant number of ambulance officers have been killed and others injured while performing their duties. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa
Ambulances and emergency vehicles have been put out of service due to shelling, and destruction by Israeli bulldozers during incursions into several cities. According to an employee of the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s ambulance and emergency services at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, a significant number of ambulance officers have been killed and others injured while performing their duties. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa
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.
