The Israeli military’s operations in Gaza are in a state of “total chaos” thanks to the outsourcing of its logistics and repair services to private contractors, retired IDF Major General Itzhak Brik has warned.
“There is a total mess that’s not being talked about in the media,” Brik, a veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Lebanon War known for his outspoken criticism of the modern IDF’s organization and culture, told Israel’s Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv on Saturday.
“Behind our excellent soldiers, there is total chaos. Equipment, logistics, food, everything that needs to be moved forward is not working properly, because the army has entrusted everything to private companies,” the retired senior officer complained.
Offering an example, Brik mentioned that under the current system, there are no capabilities in place in the army which could immediately repair damaged or broken down tanks and send them back to the front, with “dozens” remaining “stuck until they are towed out.”
“Of course, the media doesn’t talk about it, but these things don’t work,” the former general said, referring to Israel’s strict wartime censorship laws, which enable the state to restrict coverage of sensitive and uncomplimentary topics relating to the Gaza conflict.
Brik said he had met with Benjamin Netanyahu a total of six times since the start of the crisis last October to discuss the IDF’s problems. “I told him that the army is not ready to immediately go to war, because there are soldiers who have not trained for five years and there’s a shortage of equipment.”
According to the former commander, it was his personal intervention that pushed the IDF to postpone its invasion of Gaza for two weeks.
“Today, [Netanyahu] has very radical people in his coalition who threaten him and say that if he doesn’t go in their direction, they will dismantle the government, and the government is more important to him than the country. This is our main problem,” Brik lamented.
Since retiring from his post as MoD Soldiers’ Complaints Commissioner six years ago, Brik has become an outspoken critic of the IDF’s poor state of readiness, suggesting in 2018 that “if a war breaks out today, the Yom Kippur War will look like a birthday trip.” In 2020, he expressed concerns about the IDF’s “loss of its fighting spirt,” saying troopers were poorly trained and lacking in motivation and readiness for self-sacrifice. In early 2023, he warned that the army wasn’t ready for the threat of missile and drone attacks on its bases, and suffered serious logistics problems thanks to the privatization of army services. The lack of transparency in recruitment of senior officers, a messy organizational structure of the army, and the lack of accountability among commanders were other major problems, he said.
The war in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict involving Israel since the 1982 Lebanon War, with the IDF confirming the deaths of some 578 troops since October 7, 239 of them since the start of the Israeli offensive into the besieged Palestinian enclave. Israel has faced heavy casualties in tanks and other armored vehicles amid its assault, with one report based on an analysis of satellite images suggesting that some 88 armored vehicles among 383 sent into northwest Gaza had been reported missing, for a total possible casualty rate of nearly 25 percent, as of mid-November 2023. Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades claim they’ve eliminated “thousands” of Israeli soldiers and destroyed over 1,100 military vehicles, including nearly 1,000 Merkava tanks, or some 45 percent of Israel’s formidable tank forces.
A disproportionately large number of civilians have been killed in the conflict, with some 814 Israeli civilians and upwards of 29,600 Palestinian residents of Gaza perishing in the crisis to date amid Israel’s punishing air strikes and ground operation, with over 7,000 more unaccounted for and presumed dead, and over 85 percent of Gaza’s population internally displaced.