The IDF's "unilateral" draft letters sent to eligible ultra-Orthodox Jews "have failed," Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X/Twitter on Saturday evening.
Katz added that it was imperative for the Israeli military to take into account the "protection of the world of the Torah" in Israel and to "avoid harming it," and he added in his post that he wanted to set goals "for meaningful military service for the haredi public in the IDF."
The minister emphasized that these two reasons were the principles of the Conscription Law that he presented to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "Only by following these two principles together can historic change be made and a Draft Law can be passed with broad national consensus, which will lead to the rapid integration of tens of thousands of members from the haredi public as soldiers in the IDF - which so desperately needs additional manpower for regular standard service and in reserves.
"Whoever wants to attack and divide instead of embracing, uniting, and finding a real solution - I want nothing to do with them. These are the positions that I express everywhere, and any attempt to distort them will not work."
IDF summoning thousands of haredim in the next months
It was also reported on Monday that the IDF has planned to summon 14,000 haredim over the next two months. The IDF said that it had issued summons for 5,000 haredim on Thursday, with another 5,000 on April 6, and 4,000 on May 4.
Following Hamas's October 7 attacks, the IDF said it would raise the number of recruits from the ultra-Orthodox community to 4,800. Before the attacks, there were only about 1,800 joining the military from the community annually out of 10,000-12,000.
Israeli military representatives said that the best result for new recruits would only be at around 3,000.
Data presented to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this month showed that only 177 out of the 10,000 conscription orders sent to haredim (ultra-Orthodox) since July 2024 have begun their military service, which is less than 2% overall. The data also showed that the IDF sent out 2,231 final summons to people who did not adhere to the initial order before arrest warrants were issued.
The IDF has also issued 1,066 arrest warrants and officially declared 265 people as draft dodgers.
In April of last year, the High Court of Justice froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for yeshivas for haredim who didn't serve in the IDF at the start of that month.
Some haredi politicians have threatened to leave the government if a new exemption from the draft bill is not passed, while others have decided to remain in the coalition.
Yonah Jeremy Bob and Eliav Breuer contributed to this report.