Tel Aviv – The Israeli army on Wednesday said it was opening an investigation into enlistment figures on ultra-Orthodox soldiers after the Kan broadcaster reported that the military had inflated the numbers.
This had been a source of political contention for several years.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews have been exempted from military service since an agreement made in 1949.
Now, thousands of young Jewish men are exempt each year in an arraignment that has long provoked the ire of secular and traditional Jews, who say they must shoulder the security burden.
According to the Kan report, the army has been including in the figures, soldiers who were not ultra-Orthodox or even religious.
In 2017, the discrepancy between the actual enlisted number of ultra-Orthodox recruits and the reported one was more than double.
Moti Almoz, the Army Human Resources Branch Director, later told Kan that the discrepancies didn’t stem from a desire to falsify data, but from their interpretation of who is considered ultra-Orthodox.
The parliament’s defence committee said it was planning to meet on Monday over the report and had summoned army and defence officials. (dpa/NAN)
