Religious soldiers from the Givati Brigade's advanced training course have recently been deployed in the city of Hebron, including securing the Cave of the Patriarchs and its surroundings.
The soldiers claim they were assigned to joint guard shifts with female Border Police officers, without being given the option to choose an alternate assignment that would fit their religious way of life.
According to them, there was no prior offer to guard separately, and some were even surprised to find they had been assigned this way without being asked in advance. One of the soldiers said, "We received no offer to guard separately. They simply put us on shifts with female Border Police officers, which does not correspond to our way of life."
By contrast, IDF sources who spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News claim that commanders in the field initially offered the soldiers the option to guard separately, and that no complaints were raised by the soldiers at the time.
The Hotem organization, which promotes traditional Jewish values, stated, "There is no responsible body in the IDF for the sanctity of the military, and the progressive agenda of gender mixing is given precedence and harms observant soldiers."
"There is no way to speak about recruiting haredim into the IDF without respecting the observant soldiers who are already serving and giving their lives. We call on Defense Minister Israel Katz of Likud to correct this and to respect the observant soldiers in the IDF."