Nearly all bills were removed from the Knesset plenum’s agenda on Monday as the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties’ boycott of coalition legislation entered its second week.

The boycott was initially prompted by the coalition’s refusal to advance to a plenum vote the so-called Daycare Law, which would restore daycare subsidies for the children of draft evaders, but has since grown to encompass other Haredi conscription-related demands.

“The violent arrests of Torah students must stop! We informed the coalition chairman that as long as the law to stop arrests and the Basic Law on Torah study are not advanced, we will not support any coalition legislation,” Shas chairman Aryeh Deri told party lawmakers during their weekly faction meeting on Monday afternoon.

The only bills remaining on Monday’s agenda were the extension of a temporary order regulating Israel’s imprisonment of illegal combatants captured during and after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre and a government bill expanding the power of the police to conduct searches.

No other bills, including major coalition priorities, were set to be discussed, although lawmakers will vote to ratify the Knesset House Committee’s decision to take over deliberations on a controversial proposed Basic Law declaring Torah study a foundational value of the State of Israel.

The continuation of the boycott appears to signal at least a temporary halt to the coalition’s ongoing legislative blitz, which has seen lawmakers attempt to split up the role of the attorney general, establish a political commission of inquiry into October 7, and give the government significant control over the media before the upcoming pre-election Knesset recess.

Passing these bills has become especially urgent for the coalition because it has only weeks to go before the pre-election parliamentary recess, which a coalition source recently told The Times of Israel will probably begin on July 16.

Haredi legislators, who began the process of dissolving the Knesset in May over the coalition’s failure to pass a controversial law restoring yeshiva students’ draft exemptions, have since pushed for the passage of........

© The Times of Israel