IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir announced on Wednesday that the pilot program to try out women serving in tank units will begin in November, despite opposition from about one-third of the hesder yeshivas that provide significant numbers of religious Zionist combat soldiers.
Zamir said that at most, the female tank pilot program will lead to a single company of tanks crewed by women, a relatively small number out of the multiple brigades of tanks, each of which is made up of multiple battalions, and each battalion made up of multiple companies.
He also warned that female tank soldiers must meet the general physical standards to serve in the unit. He added that past pilot programs in other areas had seen an unusual number of injured women during training processes, which he said should be avoided.
On June 11, 25 hesder yeshivas said they would ban their Orthodox religious Zionist male students from joining the tank corps in protest of the pilot program.
According to the IDF, the program is only a pilot, and it remains unclear whether it will lead to women serving permanently in the tank corps.
Female soldier tank program will have women-only units
Furthermore, the pilot program involves establishing women-only tank units, such that neither secular nor religious men would be serving with women within the same tank or unit, the primary concern of the religious Zionist institutions that are protesting.
From their perspective, it is a matter of modesty and could lead to problematic mingling between men and women in such a small, secluded space if men and women were to serve in the same tank or tank units.
Traditionally, religious Zionist hesder graduates serve in male-only units, and usually in units that are overwhelmingly only hesder students or at least men from Orthodox backgrounds.
The IDF appreciates the hesder program because virtually all of its students, though they serve less time than other Israeli societal sectors, serve in combat units, and many go on to become mid and high-level officers.
But the IDF was ordered by the High Court of Justice on April 13 that it was under a legal duty to implement, as far as possible, equal opportunity for women and men in access to combat roles, including beginning its long-delayed pilot integration of women into the tank corps by the November 2026 draft cycle.
IDF pushing to fill combat roles with women
Moreover, given that the government has failed to integrate haredim into the IDF both before and since October 7, 2023, and that the IDF has lost up to around 25,000 soldiers to physical or emotional harm in recent years, leaving a massive gap in human resources, the IDF has been pushing hard to fill combat roles with women.
One woman was recently accepted into the elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal), and women have taken on relatively new ground-combat command roles as brigade and battalion commanders, and even as a missile boat commander.
Despite the IDF putting out a public response last week, noting the various ways it is still protecting hesder students from serving with women in tank units, the number of institutions barring their students nearly doubled on June 11 from an original 13.
That said, two-thirds of the hesder yeshivas have not yet pulled out.
Some may be waiting to see how the pilot program pans out and whether the IDF keeps its promise to maintain separate tank units for women, whereas artillery and infantry units now have mixed male and female units.