In a bid to stave off divisions within his cabinet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday that he would bring a controversial military service law for parliamentary review.

Earlier in the day, media reports emerged that the cabinet is expected to vote in favor of extending the Tal Law -- which exempts the country's religiously observant students from compulsory military service -- in its weekly session on Sunday.

Fearing the backlash of cabinet members who fiercely object to the law, among them Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu reneged on his plan to hold a discussion on the matter in the cabinet, saying parliament will vote on whether to extend the law, which is due to expire in six months.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who also previously sought cabinet approval, welcomed the announcement.

"In the coming year we must reach a new agreement whose primary goal is to see an equal distribution of the burden of military service and mandatory service for everyone," Barak, who is in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum gathering, said in a statement.

Military service in Israel is compulsory by law for both men and women, but exemptions are generously awarded to many religiously observant members of the country's ultra-Orthodox community who also enjoy a monthly state stipend during the course of their studies at Talmudic colleges.

Senior military officials are concerned about the growing discrepancies, with secular Israelis shouldering the bulk of the burden and freshly-discharged troops denied similar financial benefits.

On Monday, the head of the army's personnel division, Maj.-Gen. Orna Barbibai, said that the security reality Israel is confronting "demands that we enlist everyone into meaningful service."

She presented parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee with official statistics, according to which 25 percent of Israeli men and nearly half of women are currently not drafted.

Barbibai's predecessor, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Avi Zamir, predicted last year that up to 60 percent of the country's 18-year-olds who are fit to serve will attempt to dodge military service by 2020. He attributed the declining percentage of new recruits to a rise in the number of men falsely claiming to hold religious beliefs.

Israel's Defense Ministry, which seeks to change the current law, is drafting a bill that would require every Israeli to complete one year of either military or civilian national service. Barak has also voiced support for a recent proposal to pay conscripts minimum wage during their service.

In related news, a group of Israeli combat veterans on Thursday set up a makeshift tent camp in Tel Aviv, which they called the " suckers' camp," to protest news of the possible extension of the law.

The protesters, among them officers who serve some 60 days in the reserves every year, called on the government to annul favoritism and implement a more equal share of the burden. Politicians, university students and disabled army veterans visited the camp in a show of support.