BREAKING NEWS

IDF enlistment drops by 2 percent

The IDF released statistics for its November enlistment class on Wednesday, noting a 2% drop in the number of recruits.
In 2016 as a whole to this point, only 50% of those eligible to serve have enlisted. The IDF could not connect the decline to the charged atmosphere stemming from the case of Sgt. Elor Azaria, who is standing trial for manslaughter after shooting and killing a terrorist who was already wounded and immobile on the ground, because some of the enlistees filled out questionnaires before the March incident.
Nine percent of men take no part in the enlistment process. Of these, 7% do not enlist for medical reasons, 15% for religious reasons, 3% are abroad and 3.5% have criminal records,” according to the statistics.
Among women, the statistics are even worse: 14% of the women in Israel do not enlist in the IDF. Eighty-three percent of these women declare that they are religious. An IDF source said, however, that “these are not dramatic numbers: 3.2% do not enlist for medical reasons, 0.5% are married and 2.4% are abroad.”