Tel Aviv, April 28 (RH)-- Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett says the Israeli military has been “stretched beyond its limits” with the fighting in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, the Jordan Valley, Lebanon, Syria and the Sinai over the past year and a half.

“Never have we been required to manage so many borders and soldiers,” he said, in a lengthy post on X.  “At this moment, the [Israeli army] is short 20,000 soldiers.”

Bennett called on the government to further lift restrictions on enlisting ultra-orthodox Jewish Israelis to help alleviate pressure on other reservists, which he said includes his son.

In January, the Israeli military enlisted 338 ultra-Orthodox Jews, after the Supreme Court ruled there was no legal ground for previous exemptions.