
Defense Minister's updated plan for haredi draft
According to new plan, 50% of 18-year-old haredim will draft within seven years.

Defense Minister Israel Katz sent a letter on Tuesday to the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Yuli Edelstein, in which he detailed the principles of the updated plan for drafting haredim into the IDF, which has been adapted to the reality after October 7th, 2023.
According to the new plan, the goal is to enlist 50% of 18-year-olds in the haredi sector within seven years, with 4,800 enlistees in the first year, and 5,760 in the second year. After that, the goal will be to gradually increase the numbers until the final goal is achieved.
In contrast to previous arrangements that failed, this plan includes significant sanctions in the event of non-compliance with the goals, both on the institutional level for the yeshivot and on the personal level for the individual adults intended to be drafted, including the denial of benefits, such as discounts on daycare centers.
The plan emphasizes a clear preference for service in the IDF over civilian-national service, with civilian service recognized only in the security tracks (police, Shin Bet, and Prison Service) and with a limited quota. The age of exemption will be 26.
"The IDF is working to create tracks adapted to the haredi sector," the letter states, "with the aim of ensuring that a haredi, who entered the IDF as a haredi will also leave the IDF as a haredi."
The minister emphasized that in the past six months, in the absence of a regulating law, only a minimum number of haredi men who received conscription orders reported for service.
MK Edelstein said that "the increased duty of the committee is to try to reach the law. It might be that everyone here understands the law differently, but I understand that it has to meet the needs of the IDF. Why are we always going back to this discussion of continuity or non-continuity? Do you think the reservists are interested in the law of continuity?"