IDF Punishes Soldiers for Refusing Joint Service with Female Medic

Sixteen soldiers from the Givati Brigade's Rotem Battalion, including Hesder Yeshiva students, were confined to the stockade for refusing to board an armored personnel carrier with a female paramedic. Eleven soldiers received five-day sentences, and five received ten-day sentences. The soldiers' refusal led to the cancellation of an operational activity in the Gaza Strip. Adi Mintz argues that this disciplinary action goes beyond a local military matter, potentially deepening a trust crisis between the IDF and the religious and ultra-Orthodox public. This incident occurred during a week that saw new recruitment drives for the ultra-Orthodox, accompanied by protests. The IDF's "Joint Service" directive, formulated in 2016 and approved by then-Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, outlines policies for shared service. Specifically, section 12 states that a religiously observant soldier can request to avoid joint activities with the opposite gender, including vehicle travel, if there is a reasonable concern of physical contact. The directive mandates commanders to comply with such requests. The directive does not provide for commanders in the field to create exceptions, although it does allow for exceptions in life-threatening situations under strict conditions. While the brigade rabbi permitted the soldiers to proceed due to the mission's urgency, this field authorization does not supersede the directive's established procedures or absolve the soldiers who received contrary instructions from their yeshiva leaders. The IDF, by placing these soldiers in such a dilemma, has created the exact situation the directive was intended to prevent. The article highlights the predicament of the female paramedic, who found herself at the center of a public controversy through no fault of her own, facing humiliation. The author contends that the true failure lies in the lack of pre-established arrangements for such encounters, especially given that most paramedics in the IDF are women, making such a meeting statistically probable. This oversight is attributed to a staff failure, not an individual commander's. The consequences extend to recruitment efforts, particularly for the ultra-Orthodox community. Brigadier General Shay Tayeb, head of the Manpower Directorate, who had previously advocated for effective conscription laws for the ultra-Orthodox, is responsible for implementing the joint service directive. The incident undermines the IDF's promises to accommodate the lifestyle of religious and ultra-Orthodox recruits, potentially leading to significant long-term damage to recruitment efforts. The author questions the absence of the head of the Manpower Directorate and the Chief of Staff, emphasizing that a directive formulated and approved by the IDF itself cannot be treated as a mere recommendation in the field.