From the Liveblog of
Thursday, July 18, 2024
Gallant instructs IDF to send out draft orders to 1,000 Haredi men on Sunday
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has instructed the military to send out 1,000 draft orders to members of the Haredi community on Sunday.
The draft orders are the first stage in the screening and evaluation process that the army carries out for new recruits, ahead of enlistment in the military in the coming year.
Additional orders will be sent in two more waves in the coming weeks, the Defense Ministry says. The IDF has said it currently has the capacity to draft 3,000 Haredi men in the coming year.
The draft orders will be sent to ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 26, according to the ministry.
At the end of each wave of draft orders, the ministry says “a learning process will take place in order to improve the following waves.”
The decision is made by Gallant following a meeting he held this morning with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other senior military officials, including Maj. Gen. (res.) Eliezer Shkedi who, at Gallant’s request, wrote a lengthy report laying out how the country could effectively recruit and integrate members of the ultra-Orthodox community into the IDF.
Prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis have urged yeshiva students to ignore any communication from the IDF, and the parties that represent the Haredi community have escalated threats to leave the coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government fails to pass a law to exempt Haredi men from military service by the end of the Knesset’s summer session.
