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(The Conversation) — On Oct. 20, 2026, a week before Israel’s elections, dozens of men were detained on suspicion of evading the draft – arrests that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “unacceptable .”

The young men attend ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, religious schools, whose students were long exempt from the military service mandatory for most Israelis. A 2024 court ruling that Haredi men must be drafted alongside other Jewish youth intensified the conscription debate. Netanyahu’s government has failed to either legalize the draft exemption or enforce the court’s ruling, though he has said Haredim who are not studying should enlist .

With Israel’s military fighting in several conflicts, those exemptions have become increasingly unpopular: The vast majority of Jewish voters want Haredi communities to share the burden .…