Family leaders and fighters, Israeli women rise to war’s challenges

Mother, sister, survivor, peacemaker, healer, soldier – Israeli women are playing many roles in the Israel-Hamas war, with their country requiring more from them than ever.

Just as Palestinian women are carrying an outsize burden in the besieged Gaza Strip, so, too, are women in Israel, who are fighting in the army, taking care of displaced people, and pushing for justice or freedom for those killed or captured.

As Israel grapples with war and trauma, women’s rights advocates say the conflict may serve as a turning point in society’s views of their roles, especially as soldiers in combat.

Gender has been a central element of the war since it was sparked by the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas reportedly employed systematic sexual and gender-based violence on a scale unknown in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Just months after protesters marched in Tel Aviv dressed as handmaidens – decrying the far-right government’s attempted judicial overhaul they feared would curb women’s rights – Israeli women were at the front lines of the war effort.

Call to arms

Women have long been drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, but the majority traditionally have served in administrative, support, or training positions.

When Lea and Alejandra enlisted in 2022 and early 2023, they were among the first female conscripts to sign up for combat duty since Israel’s Supreme Court received a series of petitions in 2020 challenging the IDF’s exclusion of women from fighting roles.

The pair, who asked to withhold their full names for security reasons, say they were seeking to prove their strength, “test themselves,” and break the “stereotypes that only men can do combat.”

Yet they never expected to be testing themselves in war – let alone a war that “is personal.”

Their unit, Field Intelligence Unit 414, was among the first to fight Hamas when their base was overrun Oct. 7. Lea and Alejandra were on a nearby base; friends and fellow female soldiers were killed by Hamas militants.

An all-women tank company attached to a mixed-gender infantry battalion helped repel the attack, and it was female intelligence officers who alerted superiors of the raid.

“We are very proud of that, because they played a really strong role in that day – there are so many stories of girls that did everything they could and fought to stop the advance,” Alejandra, fresh from returning from Gaza and on a short leave in Israel, says via a WhatsApp call. “We are proud of how they put their fear aside.”

Alejandra’s home community was among several southern kibbutzim overrun and attacked by Hamas; friends and neighbors were killed.

“They came in and took our friends, our cousins, our mothers, our grandmothers,” Lea says. “It is very personal.”

The two of them, like hundreds of women now serving in combat units, are in ongoing combat and intelligence operations on the ground in Gaza, where they know “there is a chance we might die,” Lea says.

They say a source of courage is serving alongside female recruits they had bonded with over harsh training sessions in the desert, including 17-mile hikes and grueling several-mile marches carrying another recruit over their shoulders.

“I know that we have each other’s backs and we won’t leave anyone behind,” Alejandra says.

In Israel’s pre-Oct. 7 debate over women serving in combat roles in mixed-gender units, resistance was especially strong on the far-right and in some religious establishments.

In a November 2022 poll by the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, 53% of Israelis supported women serving in combat roles, with 35% against.

Now, more than a year later, with record numbers of women serving in combat units, “the debate is over,” the soldiers say. Approval is expressed not only in their peers’ respect, but also in being stopped and thanked by strangers on buses, on the street, and in grocery stores. 

Families

Women are also serving on the home front.

Thousands of families were displaced from southern Israel and along the northern border by fighting and missiles in the first two weeks of the war. Months later, more than 200,000 Israelis unable to return home still live in hotels and hostels across the country.

Many women are heading single-parent households as their conscripted partners serve in Gaza or on the Lebanese border, or train for deployment.

In a Tel Aviv hotel, Noa’s two daughters play in the lobby as she makes a call to her parents outside Jerusalem. The real estate agent was vacated from her northern border kibbutz and now, with her husband serving in Gaza, has to balance getting her children to a nursery, working remotely, and navigating Tel Aviv far from family.

“This is our sacrifice,” Noa says as she scrambles after the younger daughter, who wandered out the door and onto the sidewalk. “The terrorists want to break us as a nation, as communities and as families. By holding our families together, we are defeating them.”

With the government ill-prepared to provide social services to the thousands of displaced civilians following Oct. 7, civil society and nongovernmental organizations stepped in to help provide trauma support, counseling, and even basics such as clothes and food.

Women’s rights advocates cite low representation at the top of the Israeli government as hindering its ability to provide family services for displaced people. Six of Israel’s 32 government ministers are women, and none sit in the influential wartime Cabinet; one female minister serves in the security Cabinet.

Fight for justice

Last week, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum provided the International Criminal Court in The Hague with 1,000 pages of testimony from released hostages and eyewitnesses, along with forensic evidence, alleging torture, gender-based violence, and sexual violence by Hamas.

It was the latest in a campaign by families led by mothers, sisters, and forensics and legal experts to pressure for hostages’ releases and have Hamas’ leadership tried for war crimes.

Leading Israeli women rights and legal experts are assisting the campaign and coordinating with United Nations’ special rapporteurs on torture and sexual violence to build a legal case.  

“My goal is to have Oct. 7 go down in history side by side with those previous cases of weaponizing women and sexual violence in war such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo],” says Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, an expert in gender studies and international law and director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University.

As members of the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, Professor Halperin-Kaddari and others are documenting crimes and reaching out to experts in gender-based violence used as a tactic in previous wars.

“It is needed for Israeli society at large. I think this recognition is important in terms of recovery from the collective trauma,” she says.

From civil society volunteers to the army, more women are pitching in.

Recent women draftees’ requests to join Alejandra and Lea’s Field Intelligence Unit 414 were 133% of the outfit’s capacity. The figure for the Artillery Corps was 132%. Among all women, 12% requested to serve in active fighting roles.

“I really think people are starting to understand that we women are strong and can do the job,” Lea, the soldier, says, “and they need us.”