Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews rally in Jerusalem against military service | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Roughly 200,000 folks took half within the protest, bringing West Jerusalem to a standstill, native media reported.

Tens of hundreds of protesters have marched in Jerusalem to demand that ultra-Orthodox Jewish folks stay exempt from Israeli navy service.

Roughly 200,000 folks, largely males clad in conventional black fits and hats carrying placards denouncing conscription, introduced West Jerusalem to a standstill Thursday, clogging roads and setting hearth to items of tarpaulin, native media reported.

A minimum of 2,000 law enforcement officials have been mobilised to reply to the demonstration.

One teenager died on the largely peaceable protest after falling from a constructing underneath building subsequent to the protest, police mentioned.

Banners seen on the protest declared: “The persons are with the Torah” and “Closing the yeshiva — a demise sentence for Judaism.”

The mass demonstration follows a latest crackdown, with hundreds of call-up notices despatched to ultra-Orthodox folks in latest months and a number of other deserters imprisoned.

“Proper now, individuals who refuse to go to the military are taken to navy jail,” mentioned Shmuel Orbach, a protester, “It’s not so dangerous. However we’re a Jewish nation. You can’t combat towards Judaism in a Jewish nation; it doesn’t work.”

The controversy over navy service — and who’s exempt — has lengthy brought on tensions in Israeli society and turn out to be a political headache for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throughout his nation’s two-year battle on Gaza.

Underneath a ruling established on the time of Israel’s creation in 1948, when the ultra-Orthodox have been a really small neighborhood, males who dedicate themselves full-time to the examine of sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto go.

Extremely-Orthodox Jews make up 14 % of Israel’s Jewish inhabitants, or about 1.3 million folks, and roughly 66,000 males of navy age at the moment profit from the exemption.

Frustration on the exemption has grown amid Israel’s wars on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran since 2023, because the Israeli navy demise toll reached the very best quantity for many years.

Final 12 months, Israel’s Supreme Courtroom dominated unanimously that the navy should start drafting ultra-Orthodox males for service.

In its ruling, the courtroom mentioned that within the absence of a regulation that distinguishes between Jewish seminary college students and different draftees, Israel’s obligatory navy service system applies to ultra-Orthodox males like some other citizen.

That ruling has had a destabilising impact on Netanyahu’s coalition authorities. In July, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox social gathering, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), introduced it was quitting the nation’s fractious right-wing coalition, leaving Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority within the Knesset.

Parliament has been struggling to draft a brand new conscription invoice, which has thus far failed to fulfill each the ultra-Orthodox calls for and people of a stretched navy.

Israel is scheduled to carry elections by late October 2026, with no less than 11 new political events already registered and Netanyahu’s opposition as soon as once more looking for a option to unseat him.