In an interview with Channel 12 this week, the combat soldiers spoke of thundering along main roads to get to some of the 20 southern Israeli communities that came under massive assault that morning, running down terrorists, and securing breaches on the border with the Gaza Strip.
One of the officers in the unit, identified as Hagar, told Channel 12: “[My commander] comes into our room at 6:30 a.m., wakes me up and tells us that there’s a terrorist infiltration. We didn’t really understand the enormity of the event.”
The soldiers are part of a company of all-women tank operators, which was made permanent in the Israel Defense Forces in 2022 after a two-year pilot program. The company, in the Caracal mixed-gender light infantry battalion, usually operates along the Egyptian border — not in wars or in fighting behind enemy lines.
On the morning of October 7, they left their base at Nitzana, on the Egyptian border, and drove north as fast as they could, in tanks and an armored Humvee. In one of a number of highly irregular decisions IDF commanders were forced to make that day, the tanks were given the okay to drive on civilian roads — at speeds far higher than recommended. READ MORE
