The outgoing deputy head of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, is not big on interviews and rarely speaks in public. At a handover ceremony for his successor Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi this week, Zamir dropped a bomb. Zamir, who was tasked with the IDF’s force buildup, essentially said that the IDF is not big enough and could find itself lacking the critical mass it needs to defeat Israel’s enemies.

“We could be facing a long, heavy, multi-theater campaign, combined with domestic challenges,” Zamir warned. To overcome these threats on its borders and to its heartland, Israel needs “decision-making ability, breathing space and a strong reserve,” he added. “In my opinion, the IDF is on the verge of the minimum size needed to face more complex threats than those we have experienced in recent years. Along with advanced technological capabilities, Israel also needs a critical mass of people to improve the IDF’s overall quality and quantity,” Zamir said.

Zamir’s warning was prompted by the latest round of fighting between Israel and Gaza and an unprecedented quasi-uprising by small groups of Arab residents in Israel’s mixed Jewish-Arab towns. As the rioting and fighting were underway in May, several rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, though the northern front remained calm.

The simultaneous violence rang alarm bells for the top IDF’s brass given the police’s initial failure over several days to quell the domestic rioting even as the IDF was bombing targets in Gaza. This convergence of threats prompted doubts among senior office holders regarding the IDF’s capacity to deal effectively with a simultaneous attack on Israel by Hezbollah, Hamas, Arab-Israeli citizens and perhaps other elements such as Iran, its proxy Shiite militias or the Islamic State group in Sinai.