more than a year of war has worn out israel's army;

Is the Israeli army on the verge of collapsing? That’s the question many families of soldiers recently returned from Gaza seem to be asking.

A series of interviews with more than 20 combat soldiers and their families for an article published last month by Tel Aviv news site The Hottest Place, suggests that the Israeli army is suffering from a potentially terminal crisis.

“This may be a quiet and hushed-up phenomenon,” writes journalist Revital Hovel, “but [it is] one that is continuously increasing. Many soldiers are refusing to continue fighting in Gaza and are voting with their feet.”

A year of armed resistance to the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip is taking its toll. Many Israeli soldiers are now refusing to fight.

Some are even dying by suicide rather than return to the field.

“The platoons are empty,” said “Rona,” the mother of one soldier. “Anyone who isn’t dead and wasn’t wounded was emotionally damaged. Very few remained who came back to fight.”

Like everyone else quoted by The Hottest Place, “Rona” used a pseudonym for fear of retaliation from the Israeli army.

Despite the unprecedented horrors the Israeli occupation army has been inflicting in Gaza and Lebanon for the last year, many of the surviving soldiers have been mentally scarred by their experiences..........more.........