The Forum for IDF Fortitude on Thursday published a video to raise awareness of the number of injuries female combat soldiers suffer during training.
Findings from the Institute for Medical Research show that female combat soldiers are up to ten times more likely than men to suffer stress fractures and other orthopedic injuries.
In addition, approximately one-third of female combat soldiers are injured more than once during combat training. 46% percent of the coed combat unit's female soldiers are injured, compared to just 8% of the Golani unit's male combat soldiers.
In addition, 81% of male combat soldiers successfully complete their training, compared to just 24% of women - despite the fact that women are given easier goals to reach during training. Some of the leniencies include allowing female soldiers to climb the wall using a pile of stones or a bench and carry less equipment. Women also carry less during training exercises.
The Forum for IDF Fortitude's first video, which also discussed the rate of injury in coed combat units versus the rate of injury in all-male combat units, was viewed over 67,000 times.
You can view the Hebrew video here:
Thursday morning, Army radio interviewed Colonel Raz Sagi, a member of the forum who is strongly opposed to women in combat units because of the damage to their health and their lowered combat ability.
The broadcasters' claim that the army doesn't have enough male combat soldiers was given short shrift by the seasoned officer, who said that the IDF itself had lowered the number of combatants because there were more than enough. Their atttempt to say that the mixed units would be stationed in border and not combat areas left him aghast at the idea that one can tell the enemy where to strike. The two, both young soldiers, then said the Chief of Staff knows what he is doing, to which the colonel responded that much as he holds the CoS in esteem, he too, can make mistakes - and in factr, years ago, there was another excellent CoS who gave orders to limit water consumption as part of training and caused massive numbers of soldiers to suffer kidney function loss.