Lacking Charedi manpower, IDF turns to womanpower: 1 in 5 fighters are now female

 

Female combatants of the Paratroops mobility unit in the Gaza Strip during the October 7 war with a stray dog

One in five Israeli combat soldiers is female, a senior officer said in a recent Knesset hearing, underlining a major uptick in women serving in fighting roles.

“Today, women make up 20.9% of the IDF’s combat force – this is an unprecedented figure. We’re also seeing an increase in the technological units, but the main surge is in women serving as combat soldiers,” Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, said on May 7 while presenting official data to Knesset members in a discussion focused on female combat soldiers in the context of the need for an equitable conscription law for ultra-Orthodox men.

However, as women increasingly enlist in light infantry battalions, elite combat units, and other units that may put them on the frontlines, the army may struggle to address the dual challenge of integrating them alongside a hoped-for influx of ultra-Orthodox soldiers, policy planners warned.

Out of 18,915 Haredim who received initial draft orders since July 2024, around 319 have enlisted; 2,521 who ignored multiple draft orders were sent immediate call-up orders requiring them to show up at an induction center within 48 hours or be declared a draft evader.

In direct opposition to Haredi men evading the draft, Maj. Sapir Barabi, head of the Sources Department at the IDF Personnel Directorate, noted that between 2012 and 2024 – based on recruitment yearbook data – the number of female combat soldiers rose tenfold.

Regarding the types of combat roles open to women, the IDF said that women can today be assigned to 58% of combat positions. Units still closed to women include all of the IDF’s maneuvering infantry and armored forces, along with the vast majority of commando units, all of which are trained to operate within enemy territory.

The IDF has offered women combat service for about 20 years in the framework of mixed-gender light infantry battalions that are permanently stationed on Israel’s borders with Egypt, Jordan, and, more recently, the West Bank, as part of the Border Defense Corps.

Women comprise approximately 60% of all mixed-gender battalions, and the male and female combat soldiers train and serve together from the moment of enlistment through training and deployment to the borders.

During the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, members of one of the light infantry battalions normally stationed on the Egypt border, Caracal, and its all-female tank company fought for hours, killing dozens of attackers along the border and in communities overrun by terrorists.

The Home Front Command’s Search and Rescue Brigade, whose troops are mostly women and fully combat-trained, is often deployed to carry out routine arrest and defense operations in the West Bank. During the war, the search and rescue forces operated in Gaza to assist the maneuvering troops.

In the Air Force, women and men serve together in the aerial defense array, technically considered combat service. The Navy also sees women serving alongside men aboard missile boats.

Female soldiers also serve as canine handlers in the elite Oketz unit and as paramedics in other male-dominated infantry and armored brigades, including during the ground offensive in Gaza.

The IDF is expanding other opportunities after seeing a significant rise in the number of women serving in combat roles.

In 2024, the IDF launched pilot programs to integrate women into special forces units, including Unit 669, Sayeret Matkal, and Yahalom – the Combat Engineering Corps’ elite unit. The pilot at Yahalom has ended and the IDF is awaiting a decision on whether it will officially open the unit to female service.

Some female soldiers who completed the Yahalom pilot have already gone on to the IDF officers’ course, while others are now completing two years in the unit. It is unclear whether the IDF has integrated those women who completed the pilot into operational activity beyond the border.

The two female soldiers who were recruited to the prestigious 669 rescue unit dropped out, and no public information is available about the one recruited to the Sayeret Matkal special reconnaissance unit. At this point, there is no information on whether the pilot as a whole will continue or whether additional female recruits will be added to these units.

The IDF notes that all the women initially passed the screening and combat training requirements, using an adjusted physical fitness scale.

Another ongoing IDF pilot is testing the integration of women into combat mobility units in the Ground Forces. Each infantry battalion currently has mobility platoons, usually composed of regular infantry soldiers who receive additional training in operational driving on Hummers and/or ATVs.

The primary mission of the mobility unit is to deliver heavy supplies to forces operating in enemy territory – water, food, ammunition, mortars, missiles, and more. Other tasks include evacuating wounded soldiers under fire or transporting equipment between company commanders or from company commanders to battalion commanders, also under fire.

This pilot began recently and includes about 30 female combat soldiers recruited as a cohesive platoon. They are in advanced training at the Paratroopers Brigade training base, Camp Eitan, near Kibbutz Shomria.

According to Barabi, their training course is identical to that of male combat soldiers. The IDF decided to keep the women as a separate gender-segregated platoon within the brigade training base and not to integrate them into mixed-gender units with male combat soldiers.

A further pilot program expected to open to female combat soldiers in the 2025 recruitment cycle is in Unit 504 – the unit responsible for recruiting agents in enemy territory and interrogating prisoners, both in the field and in IDF facilities. Unit 504 belongs to the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate, which has the highest number of women serving in general intelligence roles.

Enough pilot programs; let the women fly

MK Merav Michaeli of the Labor party accused the military of using the pilot program system as a tool to delay integrating women into combat roles.

“I don’t see other parts of the population being placed under various pilot programs,” she said. “Just let them be assessed according to the ‘right person for the right role’ policy and put an end to all these pilots.”

One of the more contentious issues raised in the discussion, in the Knesset’s Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, was the IDF’s decision to allow religious female soldiers to serve in combat roles within “gendered platoons,” similar to the arrangements offered to religious male soldiers who do not want to serve alongside female combatants.

For example, the IDF is expected to soon open up for women a gender-segregated combat platoon in the Combat Intelligence Collection Array — part of the Border Defense Corps — likely within the Eitam Battalion, which monitors the Egypt and Jordan border in southern Israel, and another such platoon within one of the Aerial Defense Array’s Iron Dome battalions.

Michaeli sees the IDF’s allowing of sex-segregated units for religious soldiers as a dangerous path that could undermine the army’s operational goals.

“Dividing units by gender or sex does not stem from operational needs but from political considerations,” she said. “You described a phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox soldiers who don’t want to serve in artillery units because they’d have to serve alongside female combatants. This is a dangerous approach for the IDF. The great concern is that gender segregation will expand, and ultimately this will harm the IDF – and will harm women.”

Asked about the dropout rate of female combat soldiers from their training tracks, Barabi noted that in the Border Defense Corps the dropout rate among women is 15%, compared to 14% among men. “There is no major difference between the genders,” she said, “and the rates of leaving combat roles are similar across all units.”

Also participating in the discussion was Ofra Ash, CEO of the Deborah Forum, which promotes women in national security and foreign policy, who pointed out that there is still a lack of women in senior command roles in the IDF.

“Until there are women at the General Staff Forum – women who rose through the combat and operational ranks – we cannot say that progress has been made,” she said.

Currently, there are only two female generals serving in the General Staff Forum, both legal officers.

At a follow-up discussion in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on May 8, the IDF’s Tayeb emphasized that “every new regular mixed-gender battalion – male and female – presents immense potential to reduce dependence on the reserves.”

Tayeb explained that a single regular battalion – for example, a mixed-gender battalion in the Border Defense Corps or the Search and Rescue Brigade – is equivalent in operational output to about seven reserve battalions.

However, if there is one statistic that indicates the growth in the number of women serving in significant roles in the IDF, it is the percentage of women currently serving in the reserves.

During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, women made up only 3% of reservists. By Operation Protective Edge in 2014, that figure had risen to 8%, and in the October 7 war, the proportion of women in the reserves surged to 20%.

On a general IDF level, he said, 90% of all IDF roles are currently open to women.

ayeb revealed that of female candidates for military service, 37% identify as religious – either ultra-Orthodox or national-religious. Additionally, 25% of enlisted women are assigned to units in which the mandatory service period is 32 months, the same as for men. These units include the combat forces as well as some intelligence units.

During the discussion, MK Simcha Rothman from the Religious Zionism party asked how the sharp increase in the number of women – particularly religious ones – joining combat roles occurred organically, without any special measures taken by the IDF. This, Rothman noted, contrasted with the IDF’s considerable logistical and financial investment in recruiting ultra-Orthodox men, which has not yielded similar results.

Three female MKs — Michaeli, Sharon Nir, and Efrat Rayten — told Rothman that women’s motivation stemmed from watching their brothers and friends enlist, and from a desire to take an equal part. In fact, in many cases, they said, the women’s families did not support their decision to choose combat service.

The female MKs said that in the case of women’s enlistment, the IDF did not run any special recruitment campaigns – the demand for meaningful service arose from the ground up.