IDF troops conduct a security drill. (X Screenshot)
They wrote in the petition that Israel is “our homeland, where we have lived all our lives and from which we have never left.”
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Israel is facing a new legal challenge over its military recruitment rules as 42 young adults raised in the country by migrant worker parents ask the High Court of Justice to let them join the Israel Defense Forces, Ynet reports.
Their petition contends that nothing in Israeli law justifies excluding them from the draft, even though they completed their education in Israeli schools and reached adulthood alongside peers who entered compulsory service.
The case comes from a cohort that matured without any avenue to formal status. Government decisions in 2005 and 2010 granted residency to thousands of children who had already been in the school system for several years, but those moves were explicitly defined as one-time authorizations.
Children who began school after 2010 were not included and have since grown into adulthood without the ability to regularize their standing.
Concerns over deportation and enforcement intensified as these teenagers approached 18.
In late 2024, more than one hundred high school students appealed to Interior Minister Moshe Arbel to resolve their situation, writing that Israel is “our homeland, where we have lived all our lives and from which we have never left.”
The official reply stated that participation in Israeli society does not grant legal status and warned against turning exceptional decisions into broader immigration policy.
The current petition avoids the citizenship question entirely. Instead, it focuses on the IDF’s discretion, noting that the army can draft non-citizens and permanent residents and arguing that, without legislation explicitly exempting them, the state cannot waive compulsory service for an entire group.
The High Court has instructed the government to submit its response by February.
Military officials say they are prepared to examine their recruitment rules, citing both manpower needs and the applicants’ desire to serve, but emphasize that any policy shift would require political authorization.
The petitioners say their demand is straightforward: they want the chance to enlist “like every other Israeli.”
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