Jerusalem witnessed clashes between Israeli police and thousands of "hardliner" Jews on Sunday during a protest against the Supreme Court's order to begin drafting them into military service. The historic decision issued last week, which ordered the government to start enlisting hardline men, could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition at a time when Israel is waging war on Gaza. Tens of thousands of men gathered in a Haredi Jewish neighborhood to protest the order, but after nightfall, the crowd made its way to downtown Jerusalem, and the situation escalated into violence.
Israeli police reported that protesters threw stones and attacked a car of an extremist minister in the government, hurling rocks at it. Mounted police attempted to control the crowd, and security forces used water cannons to disperse the protesters, with confrontations continuing late into Sunday night. Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel, but politically powerful religious hardline parties have secured exemptions for their followers to evade military service in favor of studying in religious institutions.
This long-standing arrangement has led to public discontent, a sentiment that has intensified during the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, which has lasted over eight months and resulted in the deaths of more than 600 soldiers, with tens of thousands of reservists being called up, disrupting their work and lives. The hardline religious parties and their followers argue that forcing their men to serve in the military would "destroy their generations-old way of life." The hardline religious parties are key members of Netanyahu's ruling coalition and could trigger new elections if they decide to leave the government in protest against the decision.
