{"id":545054,"date":"2026-07-16T22:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T22:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/545054\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T22:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T22:06:14","slug":"knesset-approves-bill-extending-mandatory-idf-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/545054\/","title":{"rendered":"Knesset approves bill extending mandatory IDF service"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Knesset<\/a> plenum passed late Thursday night the bill to extend mandatory military service to 32 months.<\/p>\n

Forty-three MKs voted in favor, with 12 against and one abstention.<\/p>\n

According to the approved temporary framework of the bill, rather than shortening IDF<\/a> service to 30 months for those who enlisted in July 2024 and are set to be discharged in January 2027, the ruling will apply to those enlisted in June 2029 and are due to be discharged in January 2032.<\/p>\n

The explanatory notes to the proposal state that “the extension of regular service within the framework of the temporary order is urgently required, in order to meet the IDF’s goals and to respond to security needs.”<\/p>\n

The passage of the bill comes amid the coalition’s legislative blitz before the Knesset recesses ahead of the upcoming elections. \u00a0A series of legislation has recently been advanced by the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s coalition, which critics argue encourages draft evasion, even amid the IDF\u2019s severe manpower crisis.<\/p>\n

In the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committe discussions of the bill on Tuesday, ahead of its passing, the IDF had urged the extension of service to 36 months, warning that 32 months was not enough to achieve the military’s current need.<\/p>\n

“The regular [standing] army is reaching the edge of its capacity, and the reserve system may also go beyond that,” said DF Brig.-Gen. Shai Taib, head of the military’s Planning and Personnel Administration Division. “In some units it may even collapse, certainly if there is a further reduction in mandatory service that will force us to deploy even more reservists.”<\/p>\n

Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman accused the coalition of hypocrisy\u00a0in a late Thursday post to X\/Twitter.<\/p>\n

“The hypocrisy of the coalition screams to the heavens,” Liberman wrote. “Those same ultra-Orthodox parties that just this week led a bill preventing the arrest of draft dodgers<\/a>, voted today in favor of extending the mandatory service of IDF soldiers who have been fighting bravely since October 7<\/a> on four fronts.”<\/p>\n

Keshet Neev contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knesset plenum passed late Thursday night the bill to extend mandatory military service to 32 months. Forty-three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[68108,12184,1031,956,85,46,14406,43,58,122898],"class_list":["post-545054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-draft","tag-haredi","tag-idf","tag-idf-soldiers","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-knesset","tag-news","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-ultra-orthodox-draft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}