Defense Minister Israel Katz reportedly attempts to delay filing state response to High Court petitions over ultra-Orthodox military drafting – or Haredim – , in order to suppress observations made by the Israeli army regarding its ability to recruit ultra-Orthodox men, Israeli television reported Tuesday.
According to the public broadcaster Kann, Katz would seek to remove from the state’s response the position adopted by the Israeli army, which had indicated that it would be able to enlist the Haredim without difficulty by mid-2026, because it contradicts the position adopted by the government, which seeks to pass a controversial law on this point.
The government, at the request of the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, is trying to pass a bill that would increase the number of recruits haredimbut which would generally maintain the general exemption from military or national service which had been invalidated by a historic judgment of the High Court of Justice last June.
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Members of the coalition have frequently insisted, to justify the measure, that the army was not able to absorb the approximately 70,000 ultra-Orthodox men currently likely to serve. IDF officials, however, disagree and reportedly said that by July 2026 there will be “no limit” to the number of troops haredim which they will be able to integrate into their ranks.
Kann said Katz nevertheless asked the Justice Department several days ago not to include the military assessment in the state’s response to the High Court appeals, appeals that demand that all men eligible ultra-Orthodox are enlisted.
Another N12 report cited an email exchange in which senior officials in the military attorney general’s office said Katz ordered that information removed from the court filing, information that currently indicates “that there should be no limit to the ability to enlist members of the haredi community into the ranks of the IDF” starting in July 2026.
Defense Minister Israel Katz attending a Knesset plenary session, December 16, 2024. (Chaïm Goldberg/Flash90)
Katz made no comment on the television reports, which prompted opposition leader Yair Lapid to accuse him of “harming the country’s security, soldiers and the judicial process.”
On Tuesday, Channel 13 also reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will not submit a compromise proposal on ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee this week, despite promising made to its partners haredim coalition, United Torah Judaism and Shas, to take steps to advance a law exempting members of the community from military service.
The coalition bill is currently stalled in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Yuli Edelstein (Likud), said the IDF’s needs must come first and the committee should not would advance the bill only if parliamentarians reached a “broad consensus” on this issue.
This item was intentionally left off the committee’s agenda, with Edelstein’s spokesperson releasing a timetable late last week that did not mention the conscription issue.
Illustrative: An Israeli army soldier and ultra-Orthodox Jews during a protest against a new bill that could end their exemptions from military service, in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (Ohad Zwigenberg /AP)
At a commission meeting last month, Katz, who is reportedly working on a new project, requested that annual recruiting goals be within a range he called reasonable, playing on the idea that half of eligible conscripts could end up serving, while the others would continue to study in the yeshivot.
At the same hearing, Edelstein warned against any attempt to circumvent his commission on the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
“Regarding the draft law on enlistment, we very much hope that in the end, as I also promised to the members of the committee, we will arrive at a real bill on enlistment which will bring real solutions for IDF personnel, with gradual integration of the haredi community,” Edelstein said, according to a report from the closed Knesset session.
As the bill drags on, the IDF is working to create the infrastructure needed to accommodate soldiers who observe an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle. The military announced Sunday that the first 50 soldiers haredim were drafted for regular service in his new ultra-Orthodox brigade, known as the Hasmonean Brigade.
