The leadership of the Israel Defense Forces have announced a decision to cancel a major military drill planned for September due to severe budget constraints.
Thousands of reservists were set to participate in the exercise, which was intended to test the troops’ speed and ability to transition from routine to wartime operations in the event of a multi-front conflict.
“The routine-to-emergency transition exercise that was planned for September will be canceled,” the IDF Spokesperson said in a statement.
“That is what IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi decided today as part of a prioritization process of IDF missions for 2020, in light of shortages in the budget, which are currently being discussed.”
A new budget has been under discussion between the IDF and the Finance Ministry for some time; the military has been operating without a formal budget since the start of the year due to the lack of a formal government to formulate and approve one.