Opposition leaders have invoked a special parliamentary mechanism to force an emergency session over the government’s push to pass legislation exempting tens of thousands of yeshiva bochurim from military conscription.

Opposition heads announced Wednesday they had gathered the 25 required signatures to compel a Knesset plenum meeting during the ongoing recess. In their request to the Knesset Secretariat, they demand an urgent debate on what they describe as the coalition’s attempt to “advance the evasion law during wartime,” a reference to the legislation widely seen as institutionalizing draft exemptions for Chareidim.

The motion also calls for renewed focus on two additional crises gripping the nation: the ongoing plight of hostages held in Gaza and the lack of progress toward a ceasefire agreement.

A date for the emergency session has not yet been set.

The move comes amid soaring tensions over the conscription issue. United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas have been pressing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition to fast-track legislation formalizing the long-standing exemption of most yeshiva bochurim from military service. The effort follows a landmark High Court ruling last year that such blanket exemptions violate principles of equality and are therefore illegal.

Earlier this month, both UTJ and Shas quit the government in protest after being presented with a proposed enlistment bill authored by then-Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Yuli Edelstein. The bill included provisions that the Chareidi parties saw as undermining a prior compromise. Although both parties formally exited the government, Shas remains loosely aligned with the coalition.

Roughly 80,000 Chareidi men between the ages of 18 and 24 remain legally eligible for conscription but have not enlisted. Only 2,700 joined the IDF in the past year—well short of the IDF’s 4,800 target.

The special session initiative is notable for the absence of both Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al and Islamist Ra’am, signaling a split within the opposition over how to approach the conscription debate and hostage negotiations.

The Knesset officially entered a nearly three-month recess on July 27 and is scheduled to resume full activity on October 19. But with

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