Israel: Another conscientious objector sentenced to prison for refusing military service

Daniel Schultz, a 19-year-old from Israel, has been sentenced to 20 days in military prison for refusing mandatory military service.

On 26 October, Schultz declared her refusal at the Tel Hashomer recruitment office near Tel Aviv. Afterward, she was sentenced and then, in an unusual development, sent home to await a hearing with the army’s “conscience committee.”

In a public statement released before her sentencing, Schultz described her decision as an act of conscience rather than heroism. “I’m not refusing because I believe my individual action will change reality,” she wrote. “I’m refusing because it is the most human thing to do. In the face of babies starved to death, entire villages violently uprooted, and civilians sent to torture camps — there is no other choice.”

She condemned the ongoing occupation and the justification of violence under the guise of security. “A country whose security requires the extermination of another people has no right to security,” she wrote, adding that “Israeli society has no chance for rehabilitation so long as Zionism is its inseparable tenet.”

Two days before her sentencing, supporters gathered on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv for a solidarity protest organised by Mesarvot, a network of Israeli conscientious objectors against the occupation.

Schultz joins around 20 Israeli teenagers who have been imprisoned for publicly refusing conscription since the escalation of violence in Gaza. The military has increasingly punished refusers, often sending them back to prison multiple times for renewed refusals.

Earlier this year, Tal Mitnick served 185 days in prison, while Itamar Greenberg spent nearly 200 days — the longest term for a conscientious objector in more than a decade. Other refusers include Yuval Peleg, who is currently awaiting further sentencing after having already served 90 days across three terms, and two soldiers who began their military service and then refused — Omer Yoran and another soldier identified as “R.” — who have each been sentenced to an initial 20 days in prison.

Read an interview with Daniel Schultz by +972 Magazine here.

Read Daniel Schultz's full statement here.

War Resisters’ International stands in solidarity with Daniel Schultz and all conscientious objectors in Israel. We call for their immediate release, and for an end to the imprisonment and harassment of all those who refuse to take part in the occupation and the genocide in Gaza.