Israeli’s protest ultra-Orthodox Jewish conscript waiver

STORY: The decades-old controversy has become especially sensitive as Israel's armed forces, made up mostly of teenaged conscripts and older civilians mobilised for reserve duty, wage a nearly six-month-old war in Gaza to try to eliminate the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Palestinian enclave.The protesters want a more equal share in the burden of army service that binds most Israelis. Around 600 soldiers have been killed so far since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza, the military's highest casualty toll in years.“We are here to say, ‘we will no longer tolerate it,’” said Eran Etzion former deputy head of the national security council during Monday’s protest.