IDF sees continued surge in female combat recruits amid Gaza war

Data released by the Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday from the military’s March-April draft showed a continued high turnout of women joining combat units.

Acccording to the IDF data, the Border Defense Corps’ light infantry units saw a 129% draft turnout among female conscripts, and the corps’ Combat Intelligence Collection units — where surveillance soldiers serve — saw a 132% turnout.

The Artillery Corps saw a 142% draft turnout; the Air Force’s air defense array saw 115%; the Home Front Command’s Search and Rescue units saw 132%; and the Border Police saw 107%.

The March-April 2024 draft saw a similar spike in female conscripts joining combat units, with a notable increase from 2023.

The military often funnels more conscripts than it actually needs to certain units, expecting a certain percentage to refuse combat positions. But motivation amid the ongoing war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, appears to have changed this.

“In this recruitment, too, the high motivation of the enlistees to take an active and meaningful part in the various challenges facing the IDF is evident, as combat soldiers in the different units,” the military said on Wednesday.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir meets with female surveillance soldiers at the Tel Hashomer induction center, April 6, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF added that this draft period also included a pilot program for female recruits to serve as combat soldiers in the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504, which specializes in HUMINT, or human intelligence.

Similarly, among male conscripts, there was a high turnout of soldiers drafted to combat units, all above 100%, according to the IDF.

While women have been part of Israel’s military from its earliest days, it is only in recent decades that many combat opportunities have been opened up to female soldiers, from infantry units to tank crews to fighter pilot squadrons. Some of the progress has come at the army’s initiative, and sometimes at the behest of courts, or in response to public pressure.

Female combat soldiers played a key role on October 7, among them an all-female tank unit that fought for hours, killing dozens of attackers along the border and in communities overrun by terrorists.

Female soldiers operate a tank in the Negev Desert, in an undated photograph. (Israel Defense Forces)

Amid the ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip, female soldiers have been on the frontlines. In September, Staff Sgt. Agam Naim, 20, a paramedic with the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed in an explosion in Rafah.

Despite women’s contributions to the IDF’s combat units, gender integration in the military has often been criticized with allegations that it threatens Israel’s national security.

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.

However, defenders of gender integration generally trumpet it as a long-needed measure, one that has already been implemented in many Western countries.

The army has said it allows 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.