Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews protest military conscription

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews from the extremist group Jerusalem Faction temporarily blocked a highway near the city of Bnei Brak, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, on Monday in protest against their military conscription.

The demonstration took place on the day that the deadline set out in a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court that allows military exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews, renewed annually if they study full-time in religious seminaries, called yeshivas, ended.

All other young Israelis are required to do three years of mandatory military service, two years in the case of women, when they reach the age of majority, and risk months in prison if they refuse.

The court ruling ordered the Ministry of Defense to begin the process of recruiting haredi men from today and froze the public subsidy these students receive for many, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested on Thursday fair, a 30-day extension, rejected by the Public Ministry.

According to a photographer from the EFE agency, protesters held signs with messages such as “we will die rather than be recruited”, while a police spokesperson confirmed the arrest of five of the protesters “for assaulting officers and disturbing public order”.

Following the mass mobilization of 287,000 reservists for the war in Gaza, in addition to battalions of soldiers deployed on the northern border with Lebanon and in the occupied West Bank, many Israelis are calling on Netanyahu for all of Israel’s young people to fulfill their “military duty” .

The current coalition government depends on the vital support of the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, which oppose the recruitment of their young people and could bring down the executive if they were forced to do so, while members of Netanyahu’s Likud party, and the far-right Religious Zionist party call for an end to the exemption.