Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told Defense Minister Israel Katz Wednesday that he should hold discussions on applying sanctions to individual ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who have failed to enlist to the IDF, either through a government resolution or administrative order.

The attorney general noted that in a Monday meeting, security officials pointed out that enlistment figures for 2024-2025 did not fulfill the IDF’s needs.

The purpose of the meeting was to prepare an update for the High Court of Justice on the implementation of the court’s June 2024 ruling that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students are legally obligated to enlist in the IDF and that the government must begin to draft them.

Officials from the defense establishment, the Finance Ministry and the Justice Ministry said at that meeting that personal sanctions on draft dodgers, including revoking privileges and increasing administrative and economic sanctions, were critical for boosting enlistment figures.

Baharav-Miara said of the proposals presented: “A substantial proportion of them could be advanced immediately, including simply through a government resolution or administrative decision, without the need for legislation.”

She told Katz, “In this situation, as the minister in charge of the military on behalf of the government, it is necessary for you to lead an urgent hearing on the matter to make decisions regarding the needs of the IDF and the targets presented by the state to the High Court.”

In June 2024, the High Court ruled that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military, since there was no longer any legal framework to continue the decades-long practice of granting them blanket exemptions from service.

Haredi leaders vehemently oppose members of the community serving in the military, fearing they will be secularized. The issue, long a sensitive one in Israeli public discourse due to the perceived........

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