Haredi protests over draft arrests block roads across Israel

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox men shut down roads across Israel, stopped public transport, climbed onto railway tracks and fought police after arrests of Haredi yeshiva students who had evaded conscription. What began as outrage over draft enforcement quickly exposed a deeper fault line in Israeli society: who carries the burden of war, who is protected by religion, and how far a governing coalition can bend before it breaks.

Police said the protests turned violent at several sites. One officer was lightly injured, a soldier had to be rescued in Jerusalem, and one protester was seriously injured after being hit by a motorcyclist. The biggest gatherings were at the Route 4 and Ganot Interchange area and at the entrance to Jerusalem, with additional demonstrations in Bnei Brak, Safed and Netivot. The Jerusalem Faction, an extremist Haredi group with roughly 60,000 members, helped organize the unrest and said it would mobilize against the “continued criminal detention” of yeshiva students.

The confrontation is rooted in one of Israel’s oldest political compromises. Since the state’s founding in 1948, ultra-Orthodox men studying full time have been exempt from military service, even though conscription is mandatory for most Jewish Israelis. That arrangement was ruled illegal by the High Court of Justice in 1998, and the court renewed the challenge in June 2024, saying there was no legal framework for blanket exemptions and ordering the government to begin drafting Haredim. The Israel Defense Forces then sent out 18,915 initial draft orders between July 2024 and March 2025, but only about 2% of recipients enlisted. Court filings say roughly 70,000 Haredi yeshiva students are eligible for the draft but do not serve.

For ultra-Orthodox leaders, the fight is not only about exemptions but identity. They argue their communities contribute through Torah study and prayer and warn that army service would pull young men out of an insular religious life. For Israel’s political system, the stakes are immediate. In July 2025, Shas and United Torah Judaism withdrew support from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition unless a draft-exemption bill passed. By May 2026, the government had already submitted a call for an early election, a move that could bring a national vote within 90 days, likely in the third week of August 2026, well before the current term ends on October 27, 2026.

As the military faces manpower shortages and wider wartime demands, the draft dispute has become more than a legal fight. It is a referendum on Israel’s social contract, and the protests that blocked highways this week showed how combustible that question has become ahead of the next election.