The coalition’s proposed law to regulate ultra-Orthodox conscription falls short of solving the Israel Defense Forces’ manpower shortage, a senior military officer told lawmakers on Sunday evening.

“Will the framework of targets that has been presented tomorrow morning or over the next two years meet the needs of the IDF? The answer is not yet, far from it,” Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee toward the end of a marathon discussion of the controversial legislation.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, causing widespread resentment among non-Haredi Israeli Jews. The Israel Defense Forces has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits, due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has pushed for a law keeping its constituency out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

If the government’s bill is passed into law, it would effectively reset the status of yeshiva students who ignored call-up orders over the past year, while yeshivas would immediately receive half of the funding they got before the ruling, easing economic and legal sanctions placed on the community with the goal of ending systematic draft evasion.

The bill stipulates that 8,160 conscripts be drafted by June 2027, which it says constitutes the first year of recruitment. The required number drops to 6,840 the next year, before rising to 7,920 and 8,500 the next two years.

By year five, in 2031, the number will be set as at least 50........

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