Israel’s military has burned through as much ammunition in under three years of war as it did in the previous three decades, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, corroborated by Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. The figures point to a strain on equipment, finances and personnel that the paper suggests may be difficult to sustain.
Maariv reported that Israeli Air Force activity since the war began in October 2023 has been equivalent to roughly nine years of operations under normal peacetime conditions. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers have gone through thousands of engines during the fighting, the paper said.
Human cost outpaces material losses
While hardware can be replaced or repaired, Maariv noted that the toll on personnel is far harder to reverse. The Israeli army alone, not counting other security agencies, has lost 1,138 personnel during the war, and 11,730 soldiers have been officially recognised as suffering physical or psychological injuries, according to the report cited by Anadolu Agency.
The financial burden has also grown. A single month of reserve service last year cost approximately 2.1 billion shekels, or about $703 million, roughly equivalent to the cost of seven F-35 fighter jets or 70 Merkava tanks, Maariv reported. Some 53,000 reservists are currently kept on duty daily, straining the country’s reserve forces.
Israeli forces remain deployed across what Maariv described as three ‘security belts’, in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, in addition to the occupied West Bank, which the paper said consumes the largest share of military manpower. In Gaza, five battalions are stationed along the so-called ‘yellow line’, covering roughly 60% of the enclave, alongside two reinforced battalions on the border and additional readiness forces. Maariv questioned whether this scale of deployment can be sustained given the financial and personnel strain it places on the army.
A decade of underinvestment, exposed
The ammunition strain did not emerge only from the war itself. A separate audit by Israel’s State Comptroller, reported by JNS, found that the country entered the conflict already facing shortages, the result of a decade-long failure to strengthen domestic weapons production, referred to in Israel as ‘Blue and White’ manufacturing. The audit noted that a 2012 decision to shut down a domestic capability for producing a key raw material had increased Israel’s reliance on foreign suppliers.
The findings “further highlighted Israel’s need to strengthen the independence of Blue and White weapons production and reduce dependence on foreign countries and international interests in the supply of weapons, raw materials and components necessary for production,” State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said, according to JNS.
Israel’s Defence Ministry responded to the audit by saying weapons independence is central to its strategy, pointing to a multi-billion-shekel plan known as the ‘Defender of Israel’ framework to expand domestic production over the coming decade. The ministry did not dispute the audit’s core findings on the pre-war shortfalls.
Taken together, the Maariv and Comptroller reports describe an army that entered a prolonged, multi-front war already under-resourced in domestic production capacity, and has since consumed munitions, equipment and personnel at a pace its own press now describes as unsustainable.
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