The Israeli army said Monday it had approved new conscription orders for 7,000 members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, a highly sensitive issue in the country as army numbers are under pressure after more than a year of war in Gaza.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “approved the army’s recommendation to issue 7,000 new orders in the process of evaluating ultra-Orthodox eligible for conscription”, which are in addition to the 3,000 orders issued in July, the army said in a statement.
These calls for compulsory 32-month military service for men, which will be sent “in the coming days”, aim to “achieve recruitment objectives”, she added.
Israel has been waging a war on several fronts for a year, notably against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has left at least 780 dead and 4,500 injured among its soldiers. The war also weighs on the approximately 300,000 reservists recalled since the bloody Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
This attack resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.
In retaliation, the Israeli army launched a destructive offensive in Gaza which left 43,374 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry.
The conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews is at the heart of public debate while ultra-Orthodox parties are key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
They represent about 14% of Israel’s Jewish population, or nearly 1.3 million people, and about 66,000 military-age men are exempt because they devote themselves to the study of Judaism’s sacred texts in under a rule established at the creation of Israel in 1948.
The “haredim” (“God-fearing” in Hebrew), who have a strict interpretation of Jewish religious law and often live withdrawn into their communities, consider that the study of the Torah protects the country as much as the army.
But in June, the Supreme Court ordered the conscription of students in Talmudic schools, ruling that the government could not exempt them “in the absence of an adequate legal framework”.
In 2018, the question of their conscription had created such a crisis that it had precipitated the country towards five legislative elections in four years, without the subject being closed.
