The IDF on Thursday announced that the first woman ever has graduated from the incredibly intensive General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) special forces course and will join operations in the future.
The pilot program for women to join elite units in general, and Sayeret Matkal in particular, began in December 2024 and involved the female soldier enduring over 18 months of training and being pushed to the limit.
According to the IDF, the female soldier met all of the extremely high criteria for the elite unit. Her exact placement is still to be determined, as Sayeret Matkal has different divisions and a variety of unique, dynamically changing roles from operation to operation.
In addition, the IDF high command has taken note of the female soldier’s success and will potentially increase efforts in this direction in the future.
Historic milestone, female soldier completes Sayeret Matkal course
During a time when the IDF is profoundly short on human resources following major losses of soldiers killed and wounded since the start of the war in 2023, the military said that integrating all eligible personnel is the “command of the moment.”
In recent years, some women have been accepted into elite units, but the few who were found eligible for Sayeret Matkal training eventually washed out during the 18-month training course.
Now that this female soldier has cracked a new glass ceiling, the only remaining IDF unit without women to date will be Shayetet 13, Israel’s Navy SEALs unit.
Sayeret Matkal is Israel’s top special forces unit for on-land covert operations, including behind enemy lines.
Forum Dvorah, a non-governmental organization that supports women in the IDF, including those who are religious, said that the IDF message was praiseworthy, but did not fully encapsulate the challenges the female soldier had to overcome to get as far as she did.
The NGO said that such barriers are only broken when one truly heroic woman takes on the incredibly lonely role of paving the way forward for future women.
Further, the NGO recalled its role, along with that of other organizations, in obtaining a High Court of Justice ruling that led the IDF to begin opening special forces units to women.
In parallel, the Religious Zionist and Oztma Yehudit parties have been trying to resist religious women joining the IDF, but to date many of their efforts have only, statistically speaking, increased enlistment.