Right, so, Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to send more troops to the war in Lebanon.
He wished to drive Hezbollah away from the Israeli frontier, destroy its military infrastructure, prevent its reconstruction, and retain a security belt in southern Lebanon until Israel, as paranoid as they appear to be, is finally convinced that the threat is over.
Not just one or two more attacks and a few raids. It’s not enough to be in the South for a week or two. We need a real war. More soldiers, more territory, more attacks, more bombing of whatever Israel thinks might be a threat to its security. More war to keep Benjamin Netanyahu out of his corruption trial.
But now the bill for all of this has arrived, faster than the Knesset can say pass this on to Donald, and it’s not as cheap as it looks.
Lebanese newspaper Bint Jbeil, quoting Yedioth Ahronoth, says that hundreds of Israeli Humvees have been destroyed there, so that the IDF is experiencing a severe shortage. The poor darlings are having to walk more it seems.
All of this of course comes on top of reports I’ve mentioned in recent videos, that you might recall, that according to reports in the Israeli press, damaged tanks have been abandoned because the army has no money to repair them, a lack of parts and reserve battalions are being sent to Lebanon with a lack of men, vehicles, and combat-ready armour.
So as you might imagine Netanyahu was being warned that this was going on and could not go on. But now he’s heard it from his own troops.
The IDF is fighting two wars at once here: the one on the battlefield, and the other to find the money to wage the first.
Israel is spread from the occupied West Bank to Gaza, Syria, and Iran. The Israeli army, which is expected to support all of this, is now arguing with the government about whether it can afford to go on and of course there are all the reports of starting something with Turkey on top of all of this.
The truth is that Humvees do not run on hot air, despite the ample amount of that emitted by Netanyahu’s fascist government, nor on the seemingly endless supply of propaganda either.
Israel can repeat a thousand times that this is a question of their existence, but that will not put an engine in a broken car. Or give Netanyahu any credit for any of this.
The reservists cannot be kept in the deep-freeze indefinitely, if only to give Mr Netanyahu a little blue pill each time the guns are blazing.
The IDF had already stopped repairing damaged tanks after exhausting the money earmarked for that purpose. Some of the reserves in Lebanon lacked tanks and vehicles, and emergency call-ups were reduced. Rumours even circulated that certain operations were avoided because they were too costly.
So the Humvee shortage isn't so bizarre actually, it’s just the latest breakdown within the IDF.
And yet Netanyahu keeps increasing the number of operations. And the army runs out of money, materials, and personnel to carry them out.
But when we say that the IDF is broke, we don’t mean that someone snatched the biscuit tin from the office. No, it means rummaging through the stationery cupboard for spare parts.
Have a listen to this.
Forty billion shekels.
More than twelve billion US dollars.
And this is after the Israelis allocated a military budget for 2026 of roughly 143 billion shekels.
The armaments budget had already reached an all-time high: 143 billion shekels for 2026, up from about 109 billion the previous year and far exceeding the level set before October 2023.
But somehow, it was all used up by the midpoint of the year, because the wars were bigger, more complicated, there were more of them and more expensive than even the most pessimistic of budgeteers had been able to calculate.
Reports state that in the first plan, about 40,000 reservists were ready to serve at once.
A total of about 100,000 reservists was reckoned, but at a given moment the number reached a figure approaching 120,000.
It cost 2.1 billion shekels for a month’s reserve service. The Israeli press reported this in terms even Benjamin Netanyahu could understand: seven F-35 fighters or seventy Merkava tanks.
Every month.
A government may dig a hole of twelve billion shekels by means of years of Olympic incompetence, but it apparently only takes Bibi Netanyahu until about noon, and then he opens a new front.
But an army, even a shambles of one like the IDF, without money, ends up like this.
The procurement of fighters was delayed. Heavy armoured vehicle repair parts were delayed. Tank maintenance was delayed because of a lack of parts.
In May 2025, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that tank repairs had stopped completely. they reported that this was because the IDF's allocation for the year did not cover the repairs. The budget, even as high as it was, was cutting corners.
The army presented the government with a simple choice: either spend more money or cut down on the number of missions, but the idea of not expanding the war never seems to survive in this cabinet, with your court case dodging Netanyahu and your far right maniacs like Smotrich and Ben Gvir.
Israel's sphere of operations in Lebanon was already spread over an area of around 210 square kilometres, much more extensive than the army budget ever contemplated when it was drawn up.
Holding territory takes more than planting a flag in the ground and having deranged defence minister Israel Katz mumbling a press release as his flak jacket screams at the seams to make it look like everything is under control.
They have a military zone to patrol, vehicles to transport them, mechanics to keep them on the road, fuel, ammunition, towing equipment, medical supplies, and resupply.
The greater the occupied area, the more people and machinery that takes though.
That is what makes the Humvee the most suitable vehicle for their purposes.
In July 2025, the Israeli Ministry of Defence had announced a contract worth around $150 million, or roughly half a billion shekels. It was to be for the purchase of hundreds of American military Humvees.
It also included spare parts and maintenance, because these vehicles are some of the hardest-working assets in the army's modern fleet. They transport the troops, weapons and provisions, and carry the wounded.
They are not exactly Hollywood. Netanyahu cannot pose in front of a Humvee and look heroic, while the orchestra plays and the fireworks explode. But without them, the army ceases to operate.
American military aid – of course - financed this purchase.
Then Israel, after years of fighting, needed hundreds of replacement vehicles, paid for by America. Now they’ve had hundreds more destroyed in the fighting, and the shortage has become quite serious.
Washington can dispense money like a fountain pen, and who would bet against them doing it again here now, but no tank or crew can be dispatched from there to southern Lebanon in the here and now when they have already run out. Why take so long to act on this, or has the US said no more? Trump wanted Israel out of Lebanon of course, his deal with Iran depended on that you might recall, and you might also recall Israel refusing, so did they burn their US supply line here?
Either way, why then does Israel continue to pour men and machines into the war? And again the only conclusion you can come to, is to keep Netanyahu’s coalition together and keep him out of court.
Hezbollah launched two explosive drones at Israeli troops operating on the Ali Taher Ridge inside southern Lebanon. The IDF reports that it intercepted one of them, and the other was lost. There were new attacks from Israel.
But that is of course just one days exchanges, not the whole war and this is why the Israelis are still in Lebanon, and why they have made a military footprint much bigger than what was budgeted for.
Neither does it explain how another round of air raids will solve the growing shortage of vehicles, tanks, men, and money.
This is how Netanyahu’s wheel of misfortune just keeps on turning: the same old excuses, the same muck, and a bottomless appetite for the money and resources of others.
It all goes round and round. Netanyahu scores political points, while the army is stuck with mounting costs and diminished resources. Well they could always leave Lebanon of course.
This security zone is after all, situated within the territory of the Lebanese government, occupied by the Israeli forces, in which the army is conducting military operations.
According to the report, the Golani Brigade destroyed more than 400 pieces of “terror infrastructure” and found significant quantities of weapons. Would they honestly have claimed any different though? It’s not exactly tin-foil hattery given the propaganda that gets churned out is it?
Let’s leave that aside, however, because there’s an admission in there that’s actually even more important.
Israel intends to operate in Lebanese territory.
The strikes continue. The troops are still deployed. The need for soldiers, equipment, and money remains.
Then, having described all this, they present this little beauty.
‘We shall continue our operation to eliminate the threats posed by Hezbollah, and we will not allow the re-establishment of Hezbollah’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon,’ said the IDF spokesman. ‘We remain committed to the cease-fire agreement.’ Every time you think they can’t get any more ridiculous, they come out with another clowns nose of a statement.
It will keep operating in Lebanon, will decide what is and what is not to be reconstructed, and call that its commitment to the cease-fire.
You cease, we fire again isn’t it?
A truce was observed, but military activity continued inside the country.
But Israel agreed to the truce while asserting that Israel will decide what can and what cannot be reconstructed inside Lebanese territory.
Sounds to me like Israel gets to shoot and everybody else has to nod and pretend everything is fine and dandy as long as you don’t notice the explosions.
You don’t go into someone else’s country and blow it up, and then ask them to thank you for ‘keeping the peace’-unless, that is, you are Netanyahu.
But none of this is exactly a “buy one get one free” for him either.
Preventive measures, you call them? Call every building that you demolish “infrastructure,” and every incursion a defensive operation.
All the vehicles are smashed.
The tanks keep breaking down.
The ammunition still runs out.
And yet again, they were called to put on uniforms for the umpteenth time.
Israeli troops are also short of personnel, and you can’t exactly order more of them from America. Well not yet at least.
Thousands of reserves may be demobilised to save money, and unless urgent financial aid arrives, readiness will deteriorate.
The Israeli Army Radio had already reported that reserve units on their way to Lebanon were missing men, tanks, and armoured fighting vehicles.
One reserve commander apparently said that several groups are presenting themselves to the public as brigades, but amounted to only a fraction of what one should look like.
Another said some formations were about to collapse.
If you’re supposed to have a certain number of men, officers, tanks and vehicles, and there’s a goodly proportion missing, just because you call it a full brigade, doesn’t make it one does it?
This is what attrition means long before the whole army stops working though. It gets spread too thin.
“The staff is ordered to perform the same duties with a smaller staff. Damaged vehicles are left longer for repairs. Officers go home, operations are put off.
And yet, still, Netanyahu asks for more, like a crackpot combover Oliver Twist.
Since October 2023, the IDF has reportedly used ammunition equivalent to the previous 30 years.
Israel’s Air Force has conducted activity equivalent to roughly nine ordinary years.
Thousands of engines in tanks and armoured vehicles have been used up.
An average of 53,000 reservists remained active every day.
Israeli reports also list 1,138 military personnel killed and 11,730 recognised with physical or psychological injuries.
Whatever you think of the IDF, these are not numbers in a book; they are people; but it is as though they were to be bought as in crates, in the same catalogue as the Humvees, at a low price, when purchased in sufficient quantities.
And that also doesn’t mean I’m going soft on humanising these people either because they are still choosing to follow their orders here. In recent days across Southern Lebanon there have been, according to the press in Beirut, movements of Israeli vehicles in Hadatha, bulldozers in al-Mansouri, heavy explosions in Houla, Zawtar and Baraachit, artillery and aerial attacks around Nabatieh, al-Mansouri and Sarbin. Houses have been burned or demolished.
But the costs to Israel also now reach beyond the army. Oh it gets worse for them.
The Israeli Ministry of Finance warned that a tens-of-billions-of-shekels increase in the military budget would require corresponding cuts to education, health, welfare, public transport, and other items.
That was the small domestic matter Netanyahu wanted to sweep under the carpet, then set fire to, so no one noticed.
Every extra patrol in Lebanon has to be paid for. Every damaged vehicle has to be replaced. Every additional reservist must be compensated.
If they can’t get the money by curtailing the mission, it will have to come from somewhere else.
Hospitals, schools, public welfare, and transport.
Or Washington.
Netanyahu has been advancing the pretence for years that the endless war provides security at no cost. But now it is being paid, and the military vehicles are breaking down, repairs lie idle in the repair shop, reserves are run on empty, and so on and so forth.
The report concluded by presenting the problem that the Israelis still cannot solve though.
The more land you command the army to occupy, the more men, vehicles, and money you consume. The more you economise on those materials, the less able the army is to maintain its rule.
The IDF is not extinct yet. It is still a vast, devastating, merciless and amoral force. It has vast air forces, huge armoured forces, an abundance of American support, and it is capable of striking at any moment and sending troops to cross the border, if and when ordered by the government of Netanyahu.
But power does not become infinite merely because Netanyahu struts around like a minor general. We have learned that reserve divisions are entering Lebanon short of men, vehicles, and tanks; damaged tanks are standing idle; the number of reserves is decreasing to cut costs. Operations are apparently being avoided because of the cost. Even the army itself is asking for rest. But Netanyahu wanted endless war so that he could stay glued to the highest seat like a used blob of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a chair. It is utterly unsustainable and should he remain in power past October, it will surely be just a matter of time before something finally snaps.
For more on Israel’s lunacy in the Middle East courtesy of this court dodging monster, do stick with the channel for more such as this fine example right here for your next viewing pleasure.
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