POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
Female tank crews save kibbutzim. (TY Manfred) On Oct 7 Israel’s all-female tank crews made history when they fought Hamas terrorists and prevented them from overrunning many Israeli southern communities. They are the first female armored crews in Israel, and perhaps the world, to participate in active battle.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/female-idf-tank-crews-ran-down-dozens-of-hamas-terrorists-on-october-7/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjy0wpdSAI0When a group of young Israeli women were woken up at 6:30 a.m. on October 7, they had no idea they would be making history as the first female armored crews in Israel, and perhaps the world, to participate in active battle.
In an interview this week, the combat soldiers spoke of thundering along main roads to get to some of the 20 southern Israeli communities that came under massive assault that morning, running down terrorists, and securing breaches on the border with the Gaza Strip.
One of the officers in the unit, said “[My commander] comes into our room at 6:30 a.m., wakes me up and tells us that there’s a terrorist infiltration. We didn’t really understand the enormity of the event.”
The soldiers are part of a company of all-women tank operators, which was made permanent in the Israel Defense Forces in 2022 after a two-year pilot program. The company, in the Caracal mixed-gender light infantry battalion, usually operates along the Egyptian border — not in wars or in fighting behind enemy lines. ...
“They told me there were terrorists in all the trees around me, so we just started firing. We started firing bunker busters at the terrorists that were up close, and then mortar shells at those further away,” Michal, another officer in the unit, said in the report. ...
Hila, also a commander, said that none of them had been trained on the weapons system installed on the armored Humvee. “Within 10 minutes, we’d all become experts: how to run it, how to fire, how to slam the brakes”! ...
The newly appointed commander of the Paran Brigade, Col. Shemer Raviv, couldn’t be prouder of his female armored crews, who battled terrorists for some 17 hours straight on that day. ...
I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like I’m a soldier that was given a job, and I did my job. I think anyone would have done that.” ...
Critics of gender integration in the military often decry it as a dangerous social experiment with potential ramifications for national security, while defenders generally trumpet it as a long-needed measure, one that has already been implemented in many Western countries.
Detractors note that some requirements for female combat soldiers have been lowered — which they say is a sign that effectiveness is being sacrificed — and that servicewomen suffer stress injuries at a higher rate.
The army insists that it is allowing more women to serve in combat positions out of practical considerations, not due to a social agenda, saying it requires all the woman- and manpower available to it.
For Raviv, the battle was proof that female combat soldiers are in the IDF to stay.
