The number of teens who receive draft deferments on the grounds that they are full-time yeshiva students has risen steeply, according to the 2006-7 enlistment rolls.

The number of deferrals appears to have risen by 0.5 percentage points over the last year, to 10 percent of eligible conscripts.

The Israel Defense Forces believe that the main reason for the increase  which was significantly higher than natural growth would account for, and greater than the prognoses of the Personnel Directorate - is that religious Zionist youth responded to the emotional blow they suffered as a result of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip by enrolling in ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in order to avoid conscription.

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Eran Sternberg, who was among the leaders of the opposition to the evacuation of Gaza, and later advocated refusal to serve in the IDF, said Monday that the figures do not surprise him. "This is a natural response for many young people who, on one hand, were raised to love the army, but on the other, are really horrified by what the IDF has become," Sternberg said.

"As far as they are concerned, [deferment] is a temporary solution," he added. "The desired and proper response, in my opinion, is to refuse to serve [at all] in a system that cooperated with the crime of expulsion."

A settler leader told Haaretz on Monday that he knows of at least two heads of religious pre-army preparatory programs who have advised students who plan to refuse to be drafted to instead become full-time yeshiva students and request a deferment.

In 2004-5, the number of those eligible for conscription who deferred because of full-time yeshiva studies stood at a little over 9 percent. The figure rose to 9.5 percent for 2005-6, and is now close to 10 percent. The final figures will be available to the Personnel Directorate in the near future.

The increase appeared extreme when the IDF noticed that the 0.5 percentage point rise in the proportion of people eligible for conscription who deferred translated into a 5 percent increase in the absolute number of those who deferred because of full-time yeshiva enrollment.

According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of males born in 1988, and who reached their 18th birthday last year, stood at 45,100. This means that the number of people who deferred military service in order to study at ultra-Orthodox yeshivas rose by more
than 200.

A senior army source told Haaretz that most of the new yeshiva students "are from the extremist fringes of Yesha [a Hebrew acronym for the West Bank and Gaza] or extreme right-wing activists from the center of the country. These are people who suffered a serious jolt as a result of the disengagement and are now choosing to avoid the draft."

The source added that "while young men from the extreme left have to declare that they are refusing to enlist and risk suffering punishment, those on the extreme right who want [to avoid the army] have a much simpler option: All they have to do is register in an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva" that is part of the draft deferment program.

The senior officer also acknowledged that the IDF has no way of monitoring these yeshiva students to determine the extent to which they uphold ultra-Orthodox traditions. "They register at an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva, and that is the end of the story," he said.

Two years ago, the IDF's was very worried that the disengagement would cause a decline in motivation to join the army among religious Zionist youth. But these fears abated somewhat when the number of soldiers who refused to participate in the evacuation proved very low.

The new data, which are still not final, are the first evidence that the disengagement has in fact had a long-term impact.

There are also signs that more religious youths are now seeking to join homogeneous army units, such as the Nahal Haredi unit or hesder yeshivas (which combine military duty with religious study), instead of religious pre-army preparatory programs, whose graduates join regular units.