IDF Admits Shabbos Training Exercise Was a Mistake, Says Soldiers’ Religious Rights Were Violated

The IDF acknowledged Wednesday that commanders in the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion improperly conducted a training exercise on Shabbos despite there being no operational necessity for doing so, conceding that the decision infringed upon the religious way of life of the soldiers involved, Arutz Sheva reports.

The admission follows complaints raised by soldiers over the past week. The soldiers said the Shabbos incident occurred before the more recent controversy surrounding the presence of a female paramedic and contributed to a growing breakdown in trust between members of the company and their commanders.

That controversy erupted after 15 soldiers from the Rotem Battalion were sentenced to ten days in military detention for refusing to enter a Namer armored personnel carrier while a female paramedic was inside.

Other soldiers in the battalion maintained that the refusal was the culmination of an extended period of friction between members of the hesder platoon and their commanders over issues involving halacha and the IDF’s Joint Service Order.

According to the soldiers, approximately a week and a half before the Namer episode, their company commander ordered a training exercise to take place on Shabbos. The drill included practicing the evacuation of casualties and inserting an intravenous line. The soldiers maintained that there was no pressing security or operational consideration requiring the training to be conducted on Shabbos and asked that it instead be scheduled for another time.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, the soldiers described the concerns they raised at the time. “We asked why an exercise like this had to be conducted on Shabbat when there was no professional or operational necessity for it.” Following Shabbos, they brought the matter to the brigade rov, who reviewed what had occurred and concluded that there had been no justification for conducting the exercise on Shabbos in the absence of an operational need.

The IDF has now confirmed that the exercise indeed took place and acknowledged that no operational necessity required it to be held on Shabbos. “As part of the Rotem Battalion’s routine operations in the Gaza Strip area on Saturday, August 8, 2026, a company-level training exercise was held in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF stated.

Military officials said the soldiers’ complaints prompted an examination of what had occurred. “Following the exercise, and in light of claims raised by some of the soldiers in the battalion, it was determined that there was no operational reason to conduct the training exercise on Shabbat and that the brigade rabbi had not been informed of the exercise,” the IDF stated.

The incident was subsequently investigated, and a command-level discussion was held within the battalion, with the IDF saying that lessons had been drawn from what occurred. The military also explicitly acknowledged that approving the unnecessary Shabbos exercise had harmed the religious soldiers involved, stating, “The approval of the training exercise infringed upon the soldiers’ way of life.”

Following the investigation, battalion commanders confronted the company commander and informed him that his decision had been mistaken. According to the IDF, the procedures that must be followed in similar situations going forward were clarified to him, and he was summoned for a review with the commander of the Givati Brigade.

{Matzav.com}