Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant has approved new conscription orders for 7,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews, amid growing pressure on reservists a year after Israel's war on the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the defense minister approved a recommendation to issue 7,000 new orders after reviewing the lists of individuals eligible for recruitment, in addition to 3,000 orders issued last July.

Israel Hayom reported that Galant agreed to this step after meeting with officials in the General Staff, led by Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.

Real and urgent need

The newspaper revealed that Galant said during the meeting that "the war and the challenges we face demonstrate the Israeli army's need for more soldiers, and this is a real operational need that requires broad national mobilization from all segments of society."

In turn, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said earlier on Monday that the Israeli army "desperately needs" 7,000 soldiers.

The Haredim constitute about 14% of the population in Israel (about 1.3 million people). They have their own customs and rituals and refuse to integrate into “secular society” because they believe that this “threatens their identity and religious privacy.” They consider that studying the Torah “protects the country and the army.”

Since the declaration of the establishment of Israel in 1948, the army has not called up Haredi Jews for conscription due to political arrangements that were agreed upon to leave them to devote themselves to studying the Jewish religion and deepening their understanding of the texts of the Torah.

In June 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the conscription of Talmudic school students, ruling that the government could not exempt them “in the absence of an appropriate legal framework,” and ordering that financial aid be withheld from religious institutions whose students refuse military service.

Increased tensions in the government

Observers believe that the move to call up 7,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews for conscription may increase tensions within the ruling party coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes ultra-Orthodox parties demanding that religious Jews continue to be exempted from conscription.

The Israeli opposition says Netanyahu promised the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties to pass a law exempting the Haredim from military service to prevent them from withdrawing from his government and thus bringing it down.

Leaders of the religious parties in the government coalition had demanded that the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) pass a new military service call-up law that exempts Haredi students from conscription, before the cabinet votes on the so-called austerity budget for 2025.

The religious parties are still holding out for a bill to exempt full-time Jewish seminary students from military service, but have agreed to drop their threat to vote against the budget after securing a promise from the government to fund daycare centers for Haredi children whose mothers work.

In Israel, there are about 63,000 ultra-Orthodox students eligible for conscription, and the army sent recruitment notices to 3,000 of them over the summer, but only about 900 showed up, according to Israeli media.