Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured another reprieve in a long-running Israeli dispute over exemptions of ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service, with the Supreme Court deferring the deadline for a new conscription plan to May 16, Reuters reports.

The court, hearing appeals that described the decades-old waiver as discriminatory, had given March 31 as the original deadline. That was extended to April 30 at the request of the government, which argued it was busy waging the Gaza offensive, and which last week asked for a further deferral.

Netanyahu’s coalition includes two ultra-Orthodox parties that regard the exemptions as key to keeping their constituents in religious seminaries and away from a melting-pot military that might test their conservative values.

The latest extension is shorter than that requested by the government, but may still spare Netanyahu a public reckoning over the combustible issue ahead of Israel’s day of commemoration for fallen soldiers on May 13, and Independence Day on May 14.

Both national holidays are expected to be especially fraught this year, amid an open-ended conflict in Gaza and knock-on fighting on other fronts that have exacted the worst Israeli casualties — mostly among teenaged draftees and reservists — in decades.