About 40 female recruits for Israel’s border police will start combat training next month, another step in breaking the exclusive male hold over the Jewish state’s fighting forces.
All positions will be open to women, including the “Yamam” anti-terror commando squad, a police spokesman said.
Israeli women are drafted into the army at age 18, along with their male counterparts.
However, most women serve in clerical jobs and until recently, were barred from combat duties. The high Court of Justice ruled in November that the air force cannot bar women from taking the qualifying exams for pilots’ courses.
A number of women already serve in the border police’s anti-riot squads.
Yisrael Sadan, border police commander, said a very small number also work in undercover units in Arab areas.
Police spokesman Eric Bar-Chen estimated that 840 women would be serving in the border police by the end of the year.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
