האם אכן "אל מול פני המלחמה החזקה"? ניתוח דמוגרפי של נופלים במלחמת חרבות ברזל והמחקר הישראלי על המבנה החברתי של צה"ל

In Israel, there is a restriction on publishing information about the social composition of security forces for various reasons, unlike what is common in some armies around the world. Research has focused on analyzing individual social affiliations or psychological characteristics of casualties in the Yom Kippur War, the First Lebanon War, and routine operational activities in later years. This study examines the social composition based on the affiliations off allen IDF soldiers in the Iron Swords War. As part of the examination, records of 608 fallen soldiers were reviewed and divided into three groups: soldiers who fell during the Hamas attack on October 7-8, 2023; those who fell during the preparation phase for the ground maneuver; and those who fell during the ground maneuver phase up to August 1, 2023. The analysis included data on the Central Bureau of Statistics clusters about SE status of the settlements,their religious character, geographical location, and settlement characteristics.The analysis was compared to claims in the theoretical literature and Israeli society as a whole, which suggested that the social composition of the IDF has changed to include population groups with lower socio-economic status,mostly religious, and that the working settlement population no longer bears the security burden. None of these hypotheses were confirmed by the study.It seems that the security burden is equally distributed across SE clusters.About two-thirds of the fallen soldiers are from Central Bureau of Statistics SE clusters 6-10, while the proportion of casualties from clusters 1-3 is the lowest—even when attempting to exclude settlements with populations not subject to conscription. The proportion of casualties from secular settlements is high, and although the proportion of casualties from religious populations is indeed very high, it is impossible to determines if they constitute the majority of the fallen. This hypothesis was neither confirmed nor refuted. Finally, the proportion of casualties from Kibutzim and Moshavim is the highest among all types of settlements. Among the fallen soldiers, there is an over representationfrom the geographical area of Judea and Samaria and an underrepresentationfrom residents of Tel Aviv. The study discusses the social significance of the findings, the need to strengthen empirical research within the military, and the various limitations of conducting such retrospective research. Only a greater integration of research between academia and security bodies can prevent the dissemination of false information to the public on these matters, which is often distorted in the media and used for political purposes.