Meet The IDF’s New Female Combat Officers

Ynetnews reports: 360 combat soldiers marched excitedly onto the parade grounds of Bahad 1 (site of the IDF’s officer training school) to officially become combat officers, after completing their grueling eight-month course.

Of the hundreds of candidates, one could easily pick out the faces of the 20 women – of which six will be combat officers, and 14 will be surveillance officers.

Their small number indicates that even today, 20 years after the High Court’s famous decision in the Alice Miller case (in which the HCJ ruled that women should not be excluded from IAF pilot courses on the base of gender), women’s participation – specifically as officers – in IDF infantry divisions should not be taken for granted.

In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of women who volunteer for combat duty, although it requires them to serve for the same amount of time as men (In the IDF, men serve for three years, while women typically serve for two).

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