Israeli minister petitions high court to demand Arab conscription

An Israeli minister submitted a petition to the country's High Court on Monday to demand a universal conscription of Arab citizens.

The move comes amid divisions inside Israel over the mandatory conscription of Ultra-Orthodox Jews into military service amid a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Israel's Supreme Court ordered an end to government subsidies to schools for ultra-Orthodox men eligible for army enlistment. The court gave the government until April 1 to present a new plan, and until June 30 to pass it.

"According to the law as it is today, every Arab has to go to the recruitment office, and the IDF (army) decides whether to recruit him for the IDF or for national service," Regional Cooperation Minister Dudi Amsalem said on Sunday.

However, "since the establishment of the state until today, this doesn't happen—yet the Supreme Court, during a war, rushed to attack the Haredim and Torah scholars."

According to the latest official data, Israel's Arab population is estimated at 2.048 million, constituting 21% of the country's total population of 9.7 million.

The Israeli minister argued that his petition aims to expose what he called justices' "hypocrisy."

"The students of Torah are a thorn in the side of the occupants of this building, which I call the building of the hypocrites," Amsalem said, referring to the court.

"I want to see what those hypocrites will do now with the Arabs. I promise you—nothing. Because there is a lot of hatred for Judaism and the Jewish people's heritage here," he added.

Several parties in the ruling coalition, including Shas Party and the Jewish Power Party, have threatened to withdraw from the government if Ultra-Orthodox students are obliged to conscription.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed some 1,200 people.

At least 32,845 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 75,400 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war, now in its 178th day, has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which on Thursday asked Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.