The Hesder Yeshivot Association said that, following a meeting on Tuesday between religious Zionist rabbis and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Hesder yeshiva students will enlist in the Armored Corps this coming August. The announcement came after several large Hesder yeshiva heads said about two weeks ago that they would stop sending students to the Armored Corps starting with the next draft cycle.
According to the rabbis, that earlier move was a protest against a recent Supreme Court ruling requiring the IDF to integrate women into combat service in the Armored Corps. In their letter, they said they viewed the decision very seriously, criticized the positions of the state and the army, and asked the military to find a solution for combat-fit students who cannot serve in the infantry.
The court ruled unanimously that the IDF has a legal duty to ensure equal opportunity between men and women in combat assignments. By majority decision, it ordered a trial period for women in the Armored Corps beginning in November 2026. The justices said excluding women from a role can be allowed only as an exception, and that the burden of proving this lies with the army.
Zamir told the rabbis that the IDF still lacks thousands of fighters to meet its missions, and that every soldier is needed to help secure battlefield gains. He said one of the foundations for integrating broad populations into service is implementing the shared service order, which, he said, allows people to serve alongside one another rather than at one another's expense. He added that new frameworks and openings for women would be implemented in full alignment with that order and while meeting the required professional standards.
Meanwhile, 257 reserve female officers sent a separate letter on Monday to the chief of staff, the defense minister, and the director general of the Defense Ministry, urging them to stop what they called an anti-woman wave against female soldiers. The signatories included six brigadier generals, seven colonels, and 28 lieutenant colonels. They warned that outside pressure on operational decisions could harm national security, and wrote, "Conceding to external pressure is security negligence and a dismantling of the people's army from within."
