AG accuses ministry heads of violating court ruling requiring sanctions for Haredi draft evaders – report

The Attorney General’s Office accuses Transportation Minister Miri Regev (Likud) and Interior Minister director general Israel Uzan, a former adviser to Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri, of violating a court ruling requiring their ministries to impose sanctions on draft evaders, Calcalist reports.

According to the financial news site, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon wrote to Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs arguing that “in order to uphold the court’s decision…action must be taken urgently to transfer the authority to the prime minister or another minister to be determined by the government” in order to cancel draft dodgers’ property tax discounts in the wake of Uzan’s refusal to do so.

Since Shas left the government last summer, the role of interior minister has remained vacant, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was temporarily granted a number of powers usually assigned to the position.

Likewise, Limon wrote to Regev noting that a joint Transportation-Finance Ministry panel had determined that “there is no professional barrier to implementing the court’s instructions” and demanding that she take action on revoking dodgers’ transportation discounts by Wednesday.

In April, the High Court of Justice ordered the government to adopt a raft of measures that would punish ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers by denying them various welfare benefits unless they enlist for military service. The court said it was issuing the orders because the government had failed to implement the court’s ruling from November 2025 that it must adopt enforcement measures against ultra-Orthodox men who have failed to enlist in the IDF after being sent conscription orders.

Since the court ruled in 2024 that yeshiva students were no longer exempt from conscription, the government has decided that evaders are no longer eligible to participate in the housing lottery and can no longer receive daycare subsidies.

Haredi leaders have decried the sanctions as a harsh “blow to the heart of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”

After Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara recently announced an end to tax breaks for donors who give money to yeshivas that harbor military draft dodgers, Shas chairman Deri threatened a Haredi tax revolt.

Despite constituting 14 percent of the working-age population, the ultra-Orthodox community generated only four percent of Israeli tax revenues in 2023, costing the government billions and adding thousands of shekels to the average non-Haredi worker’s annual tax burden, according to a 2025 study by the Israel Democracy Institute.