First Haredi Technicians Begin Work at Tel Nof Air Force Base as Protests Against Draft Continue
Twenty ultra-Orthodox technicians completed training and began work on F-15 aircraft in the 106th Squadron. The IDF announced the recruitment on Sunday.
jns.orgTwenty haredi air force technicians were recruited last week at Tel Nof Air Force Base after completing a two-month technician training course at a base in Haifa, the IDF announced on Sunday. The 20 haredim will begin working on F-15 aircraft in the 106th Squadron. This is the first religious data center on the base.
The IDF is working to allow haredim to maintain their way of life while also completing mandatory military service. Israel’s military manpower crisis is expected to deepen unless legislation extending mandatory service advances separately from the haredi draft bill. The IDF faces a widening gap between wartime operational needs and the number of soldiers available to meet them.
The army is operating across multiple arenas while also dealing with heavy casualties, high reserve use, and growing erosion among both regular and reserve forces. Many reservists who once served far more limited periods have been called up repeatedly since the war began, with annual reserve burdens now reaching roughly 80 to 100 days for some combat soldiers. -Gen.
Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot said that implementing a law for mandatory service for all "is the need of the hour. It is a moral imperative. " Reservist Party leader Yoaz Hendel stated, "The chief of staff is right.
Listen to him. Victory requires soldiers. " "Even if they [the government] told the cameras that they froze the draft evasion law, in practice they continue to transfer money to institutions that encourage evasion and do not enforce the existing law," Hendel added.
Haredi men protested against the jailing of yeshiva students who failed to comply with an IDF draft order in May 2026.
