However, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth later announced that he would continue to push the bill through, although it failed to progress due to a last-minute disagreement with the United Torah Judaism party\u2019s Degel HaTorah faction\u2019s rabbinic leadership over the bill\u2019s contents.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu later informed the Haredi parties that the coalition did not have a majority to pass the controversial legislation, and suggested waiting until after the 2026 elections. When the Haredi parties rejected that option and began to push for the dissolution of the Knesset earlier this month, the bill was once again put back on the parliamentary agenda as the premier sought to win them back over.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Netanyahu began putting pressure on coalition MKs opposed to the legislation to come around and support it.<\/p>\n
\t Despite the premier\u2019s efforts, however, a spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah, told the Times of Israel on Sunday that he had instructed MKs from his faction \u201cnot to advance the bill at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n The implication was that Lando does not believe the exemption law will actually end up passing, and that the recent push to advance it through the Knesset is part of a larger electoral maneuver on Netanyahu\u2019s part.<\/p>\n The leading Haredi rabbi previously told lawmakers last week \u201cnot to get drawn into political games.\u201d<\/p>\n The ultra-Orthodox parties have been pushing to dissolve the Knesset over the failure to pass an exemption bill they deem to be satisfactory, and reportedly favor an election date in early September.<\/p>\n Lawmakers voted unanimously last week in favor of a preliminary reading of a government-backed bill to dissolve the Knesset, potentially triggering slightly earlier elections if ultimately passed into law.<\/p>\n The dissolution bill does not specify an election date, although elections must be held within five months of it passing, which would mean mid- to late-October at the latest.<\/p>\n Elections must, in any case, be held by October 27.<\/p>\n Over 79,000 conscription orders have been issued to ultra-Orthodox men since the High Court of Justice ruled in 2024 that they were obligated to enlist, after the law allowing for blanket exemptions expired the previous year.<\/p>\n Since that time, only 2,100 have enlisted, while the police have avoided arresting those who have ignored enlistment orders. Between January 2025 and January 2026, only 17 ultra-Orthodox men were proactively arrested by police for draft evasion.<\/p>\n According to the IDF, there are currently around 32,000 people classified as draft evaders \u2014 while another 50,000 others have received a formal warning ahead of their formal declaration by the government as draft evaders \u2014 and the number of evaders could soon climb as high as 80,000 to 90,000.<\/p>\n The military has repeatedly warned that, after more than two years of war, it is facing a severe manpower shortage.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tUltra-Orthodox Jewish men protest against the jailing of yeshiva students who evaded the draft outside the home of Military Police chief Brig. Gen. Yuval Yamin in Ashkelon, May 14, 2026. (Tsafrir Abayov\/Flash90)<\/p>\n
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