More than 100 draftees said refusing to serve as surveillance soldiers after Oct. 7 deaths

More than 100 female soldiers in the latest draft are refusing to serve as surveillance soldiers, the Ynet news site reports.

The soldiers are refusing to get on board buses that will take them from the draft center to their training base.

According to Ynet, 126 out of the 326 who were drafted this week were refusing to go.

The mass refusal comes after 15 IDF surveillance soldiers were killed and six more were taken hostage during the Hamas attack on the Nahal Oz base as part of the October 7 assault that saw some 1,200 people  killed in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and 253 taken hostage.

Ynet says that this is the third draft since October 7 that has seen significant numbers refusing to serve in the unit.

The soldiers of the unit are tasked with monitoring surveillance cameras along the Gaza border and dispatching forces to potential incidents. The unit has multiple command centers in various army positions along the border. The vast majority of those serving in the unit are female soldiers.

Members of the unit were among those who warned, in the months before the Hamas massacres, of unusual activity by Hamas at the border fence. However, in many cases, their warnings were largely ignored.