The company commander of a female artillery unit said soldiers were asked to remain in their rooms before Netanyahu's visit to a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) base to avoid mixing with troops not approved to meet the prime minister. She denied the order constituted exclusion of women, saying only those scheduled for the meeting — not all male soldiers — were involved.
The company commander of a female IDF artillery unit has provided a detailed account of the instructions given to female soldiers ahead of Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) military base earlier this week.
In an interview that circulated on Israeli social media, the commander said that soldiers who were not cleared for the PM meeting were asked to stay in their rooms and not leave the building, because the visit was a "regulated operational event" on a base with restricted movement. She stressed that this was not gender-based exclusion: the order applied equally to male troops who were not part of the scheduled meeting.
As The Zioneer previously reported, the visit drew scrutiny when female soldiers told media they had been confined to their rooms. The commander's account aims to frame the decision as logistical rather than discriminatory.
No IDF official has commented on the specific account, and the military's position on gender separation during senior visits remains under internal review.
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Source and signal
- Internal intake