6/20/2024–|Last updated: 6/20/202410:57 PM (Mecca time)
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant called for extending military service, while hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated on Thursday to protest attempts to recruit them into the Israeli army.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that Gallant called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu via an official letter to urgently discuss extending regular army service to 3 years.
According to what Channel 12 reported, after more than 4 months of delay, Gallant called on Netanyahu to immediately accelerate the service extension law, as “the new security reality requires a major operational response in order to continue the war effort.”
Haredi demonstrations against their conscription
In this context, today, Thursday, hundreds of religious Jews demonstrated and closed a main street in the greater Tel Aviv area, in protest against attempts to recruit them into the Israeli army, according to Israeli media.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper (privately) said that hundreds of religious Jews (Haredim) from the Jerusalem Faction organization blocked Route 4 at the intersection of the Givat Shmuel area near the city of Bnei Brak, in protest against attempts to recruit them into the Israeli army.
The Jerusalem Faction is an Israeli Haredi political organization that opposes attempts to recruit religious Jews into the army, and is considered one of the most extremist movements in the Haredi community, according to Israeli media.
Recruitment demands
Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy said in a press conference on Sunday that recruiting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army has become an urgent necessity, and for this reason, “we strongly encourage it, and we want to do it correctly.”
He said that each religious Jewish battalion established by the Israeli army would provide the recruitment of thousands of reserve soldiers.
Opposition parties and even figures from the Likud Party, which participates in the ruling coalition, also called for the recruitment of religious Jews.
Last week, the Knesset voted, during a plenary session, in favor of reviving a draft law on conscription that was proposed during the term of the previous parliament, and grants religious Jews (Haredim) exceptions regarding military service.
The project includes lowering the age of exemption from conscription for Haredim to 21 years (currently 26 years).
Currently, when the Haredim reach 18 years old (the age for joining military service in Israel), they are able to avoid conscription into the army by obtaining repeated postponements of one year under the pretext of studying in religious schools, until they reach the age of exemption from conscription (currently 26 years old).
After examining the legislation in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, it is scheduled to put it through the second and third readings necessary for it to become an effective law.
The pressures to recruit Haredim coincide with the continuation of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, and has so far left more than 123,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and nearly 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of dozens of people. .