IDF: Only 1,212 of the 24,000 Haredi men called up in past year have begun enlistment process

While the IDF has sent initial call-up orders to 24,000 ultra-Orthodox men since last summer, only 1,212 have begun the enlistment process, Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, tells lawmakers.

Addressing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s Subcommittee for IDF Human Resources, Tayeb says that as of the beginning of the week, 2,399 of those who have received draft notices have since been sent demands for an immediate call-up.

He says that 545 of them have not turned up by their mandatory enlistment reporting date.

After ignoring three draft notices, a potential conscript receives an immediate call-up order. If they do not show up at a recruitment center within 48 hours, the military declares them a “draft evader” and normally will issue an arrest warrant, though these are rarely enforced. Soldiers who fail to show up at induction centers on the day they are supposed to be drafted into the army are also declared draft evaders.

If the potential conscript does not show up at an induction center within 30 days after being declared a draft evader, they will receive an order known as tzav 12 which means they are barred from leaving the country and can be arrested during any encounter with the police.

Out of the first wave of 3,000 Haredim to receive call-up orders, 964 have already been declared draft evaders while an additional 1,366 have received immediate call-up orders and have subsequently had arrest warrants issued for them.

According to Tayeb, out of those sent orders, half were under the age of 20, 40 percent were 20-23 years old and 10% were over age 23. He says 411 men have been delayed at Ben Gurion International Airport over their enlistment status, 43 of whom were prevented from leaving the country.

“The security situation requires very significant manpower, this has an impact,” he says, adding that the IDF is “carrying out enforcement actions, there was a policy of increasing punishment.”

Tayeb adds that the IDF is handling operations against draft evaders, even though the Military Police force is stretched because of many other war-related tasks.

Last week, the IDF announced that it had launched a “routine” Military Police campaign to detain people who ignored enlistment orders, sparking threats by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners to bolt the coalition. However, it does not appear that any arrests of Haredim were made during the operation.

According to Tayeb, the conscription of Haredim requires targeted sanctions.

“If we want to deal with such significant numbers, we need more such sanctions. The sanctions that exist today are very sparse,” he says, adding that “if the state is willing,” it can deny certain government services to those who do not serve.

Officials present at the meeting accused the military of failing to act decisively on the matter.

“The army is dragging its feet to the point where it does not want to recruit Haredim,” charges former IDF deputy chief of staff Dan Harel. “You are not enforcing the law.”

“We have a difficult feeling that there is no progress on the issue of recruiting Haredim,” adds committee chairman and former IDF manpower chief Elazar Stern of Yesh Atid.