The IDF officially acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that a training exercise was held on Shabbat in the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion despite there being no operational reason to conduct it that day, and that the brigade rabbi had not been informed of the exercise.
The confirmation comes after soldiers told Arutz Sheva over the past week that the incident preceded the controversy involving a female paramedic and was part of a crisis of confidence that had developed between them and their company commanders.
The allegations were raised against the backdrop of the incident in which 15 soldiers from the Rotem Battalion were sentenced to ten days in military detention after refusing to board a Namer armored personnel carrier in which a female paramedic was present.
Their fellow soldiers claimed that the refusal did not occur in a vacuum, but followed a period of tension between soldiers in the hesder platoon and their commanders over matters of Jewish law and the IDF’s Joint Service Order.
According to the soldiers, about a week and a half before the Namer incident, the company commander decided to conduct a training exercise on Shabbat that included casualty evacuation and inserting an IV line. The soldiers said there was no urgent operational need requiring the exercise to be conducted on Shabbat and asked that it be postponed to another time.
In conversations with Arutz Sheva, the soldiers said, “We asked why an exercise like this had to be conducted on Shabbat when there was no professional or operational necessity for it." They said that after Shabbat, they approached the brigade rabbi, who heard the details of the incident and responded that there was no justification for conducting such an exercise on Shabbat when it did not stem from an operational need.
The IDF is now confirming both that the training exercise took place and that there was no operational reason to hold it on Shabbat. “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.
The IDF added that the incident was examined following the complaints raised by the soldiers. “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 IDF further said that the incident was investigated, that a command-level discussion was subsequently held within the battalion, and that lessons were learned. The IDF also acknowledged the harm caused to the soldiers, stating, “The approval of the training exercise infringed upon the soldiers’ way of life."
Following the incident, battalion commanders spoke with the company commander and made clear to him that he had erred in his decision. The IDF said that the proper procedures for handling such matters in the future were clarified to him and that the company commander had been summoned for a review with the commander of the Givati Brigade.