(Bloomberg) -- Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the government to freeze funding for hundreds of religious seminaries from next week in a surprise blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which includes ultra-Orthodox political parties.

The decision targets a favorite cause of Netanyahu’s closest political allies, whose support is key for the survival of his right-wing government. It also revives tensions between Israel’s government and a judiciary it attempted to weaken last year, just as political splits related to the war against Hamas in Gaza grow.

The court’s move was a response to the government’s repeated failure to legislate the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men into the Israeli army. Ultra-Orthodox men in Israel have enjoyed blanket military exemptions for decades in favor of religious study, an arrangement the top court has repeatedly ruled is illegal. Israel has a mandatory draft for its other citizens.

The issue has become more contentious since the conflict erupted on Oct. 7 when Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union, attacked Israel from Gaza. Israel immediately called up hundreds of thousands of reservists as it prepared for a ground assault on the Palestinian territory.

Centrists and leftists in Israel, including Benny Gantz, who joined an emergency war cabinet soon after fighting started, say the country of around 10 million people has to be able to recruit from all sectors of society. They argue the issue will become more pressing because Israel’s defense needs will inevitably rise in the coming years.

Netanyahu missed a court-imposed deadline this week to pass an amended enlistment law and instead asked the court to provide another 30-day extension. His attorney general, however, broke with the government and in a separate filing backed the defunding of seminaries, or yeshivas, and the forced enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men.

Under Thursday’s court decision, seminaries where students of army age are enrolled will no longer receive state funding from April 1. The court will convene in May to decide whether to make the interim ruling permanent.

Hundreds of seminaries, or yeshivas, will lose more than a third of their funding over the 56,000 students of draft age enrolled in them, according to the Justice Ministry.

(Updates with how decision relates to the war in Gaza.)

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