A senior Israeli military officer told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that the army will issue 14,000 new draft orders to Haredi Orthodox men in the coming months but admitted this would not meet the military’s recruiting targets.
Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, responsible for boosting Haredi recruitment, outlined the Israel Defense Force’s plan to issue: 5,000 draft orders on March 13, 4,000 on April 6, and another 5,000 on May 4. However, when lawmakers asked if this would meet the IDF’s target of 4,800 Haredi recruits, Dickstein said it would not.
Of the 14,000 summonses, 9,100 will be randomly sent to eligible Haredim, while 4,900 will go to those the IDF believes are more likely to report for induction — such as individuals who work, study in higher education, or hold driver’s licenses, indicating they are not full-time yeshiva students.
On March 6, the IDF told lawmakers that of 10,000 draft orders sent to Orthodox Haredim since July, only 177 enlisted.