For the first time since October 7, an officer from the Israeli Air Force (IAF) admitted that the air force's competence and readiness for battle was significantly degraded as the result of the refusals to serve during the protests against the government's attempt to implement judicial reforms in 2023, Channel 12 News correspondent Amit Segal reported.
According to the report, the commander of the Air Control and Flight School, Lt. Col. Yaniv Even, discovered that after the massacre there were many reservists in sensitive positions in the IAF who were no longer competent to fly on missions because they had refused to report for training prior to the war.
Col. Even is responsible for two kinds of training that are vital to the functioning of the IAF. The first is the protection of the nation's skies and the second is the coordination of the airspace so that many planes and aircraft can operate in relatively close proximity without crashing into each other.
"As soon as some time passes, you realize that the training needs to happen quickly," said Evan, who described the training that was required after October 7. "There were quite a few reservists who were unfit for the task. And we needed to quickly build a training program for them, based on the knowledge we learned in the war, and put them through it one after the other."
He added that "the starting point for learning lessons is failure. We as an army unequivocally failed."
The IDF has maintained that there was no decline in the IAF's competence and readiness in light of the refusal of reservists who were protesting against the judicial reforms to report for duty.