Women fill just 3.3 percent of military’s combat roles.
TZE’ELIM, ISRAEL – After five days treating wounded Israeli soldiers on the battlefields of the Gaza Strip this summer, Staff Sgt. Noam Dan was taking a break with her unit when a commander from another army battalion walked past.
Dan, like the other soldiers, was wearing fatigues and a helmet and carrying a gun. But the commander’s eyes stopped on the dark braid cascading down her back.
“He said, ‘What are you doing here? You’re a girl!’ Before I could answer, one of my officers said, ‘What do you mean? She fights better than any of you,’ ” said Dan, 21, a paramedic who lived out of a tank for more than a week straight during the Israel-Hamas war, treating injured Israeli soldiers as fierce battles took place nearby.
Dan’s stories of saving lives under sniper fire are seen as heroic here, and since the fighting ended in a cease-fire last month, she has sat for multiple media interviews — in an attempt, she said, to encourage more Israeli women to join the growing ranks of female soldiers who serve in combat roles.
About 50 Israeli women served inside Gaza, the highest number yet during an Israeli conflict. But their prominence has renewed debate here about the position of women in the nation’s army, with critics saying the percentage of combat roles filled by women — about 3.3 — is too low for a military that prides itself on being one of the world’s only with mandatory service for men and women.
Those like Dan, some contend, are token symbols in a male-dominated institution that is increasingly influenced by religious soldiers who do not believe in gender equality.
“What is important to look at is the positions that are still closed to women,” said Elana Sztokman, an author and women’s activist. “It is all the elite units, the really important ones that boost your status in Israeli society and open the doors for you after you finish army service,” she said, noting that most of the country’s top political and military leaders served in those elite units.
Military officials counter that 92 percent of all military jobs are open to women, who make up one-third of the active duty Israeli army — compared with about 14 percent of the U.S. Army.
“Female fighters are being taken much more seriously today than in the past,” said reservist Sapir Yehudain, a 25-year-old student who served in the Caracal unit from 2008 to 2010 and was called up to the reserves this summer. Caracal is a coed combat battalion that serves on the fragile border between Israel and Egypt’s militant-filled Sinai Desert.
“The guys I do reserve duty with did not serve in Caracal, but when they saw that we’d gone through the same training as them, they understood that we could do everything they could too,” said Yehudain.
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