Israel’s parliament rejects vote on dissolving itself

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the head of the table, center right, and lawmakers attend a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Israel, Monday, July 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

JERUSALEM — Israel’s parliament rejected early on Thursday a preliminary vote to dissolve itself, the Knesset said in a statement, after an agreement was reached regarding a dispute over conscription.

The vote, which could have been a first step leading to an early election that polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would lose, was rejected with 61 lawmakers opposing it to 53 supporting it.

The Knesset consists of 120 seats, and the majority needed to pass the vote was 61 lawmakers.

This gives Netanyahu’s ruling coalition further time to resolve its worst political crisis yet and avoid a ballot, which would be Israel’s first since the eruption of the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu has been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.

“I am pleased to announce that after long discussions we have reached agreements on the principles on which the draft law will be based,” Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Yuli Edelstein said in a statement.

Some religious parties in Netanyahu’s coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.

The exemptions have been a hot-button issue in Israel for years but have become particularly contentious during the war in Gaza, as Israel has suffered its highest battlefield casualties in decades and its stretched military is in need of more troops.

Growing increasingly impatient with the political deadlock, ultra-Orthodox coalition factions have said they will vote with opposition parties in favor of dissolving the Knesset and bringing forward an election that is not due until late 2026.

“It’s more than ever urgent to replace Netanyahu’s government and specifically this toxic and harmful government,” said Labour’s opposition lawmaker Merav Michaeli. “It’s urgent to end the war in Gaza and to bring back all the hostages. It’s urgent to start rebuilding and healing the state of Israel.”

Successive polls have predicted that Netanyahu’s coalition would lose in an election, with Israelis still reeling over the security failure of Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7 2023 attack and hostages still held in Gaza.

Hamas’ surprise attack led to Israel’s deadliest single day and shattered Netanyahu’s security credentials, with 1,200 people killed and 251 hostages taken into Gaza.

Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza has since killed almost 55,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Gaza, left much of the territory in ruins, and its more than two million population largely displaced and gripped by a humanitarian crisis.

Twenty months into the fighting, public support for the Gaza war has waned. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat there, adding to anger many Israelis feel over the ultra-Orthodox exemption demands even as the war drags on.

Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, however, see full-time devotion to religious studies as sacrosanct and military service as a threat to the students’ strict religious lifestyle.

Writing by Maayan Lubell; Additional reporting by Enas Alashray; Editing by Crispian Balmer, William Maclean and Michael Perry