On Sunday, five women are set to make history as they take their places in crews of the Israeli Navy's missile ships.
The women are the first female recruits to complete the training course.
The new sailors will be deployed on the Navy's Sa'ar 5 corvettes, and later this year, when the Navy expects to add the Sa'ar 6 model to its fleet, women will serve on those boats, as well.
Until now, the only women who served on Israeli Navy missile ships had completed the Naval Officers Course.
"We are at the beginning of a trend that will only gain speed," said Lt. Col. Avi Avsker, commander of the missile ship training program.
"Personally, I believe that there is not only a security, but also a national, interest in integrating women into one of the IDF's most active operational units," Avsker said.
Avsker stressed that the course had not been made any easier to accommodate female cadets. He says that in terms of infrastructure, there are no issues with integrating female sailors on missile ships, and that previous attempts to do so had failed because the military had approached the matter incorrectly. Now, he says, there is an understanding that there is no reason not to deploy women on missile ships.
"What's changed isn't infrastructure, but rather the openness and the atmosphere. Today, there is no role on a missile ship in which women can't serve," Avsker said.
One of the new sailors is Romi Kalif, 19, from Moshav Beit Yanai. She will be deployed on the INS Hanit.
"My female comrades and I are paving the way, molding the character of future female fighters. There is a sense of starting out on a new path and a sense of responsibility," Kalif said.
"We are definitely making history, and it's about time," she added.
Kalif emphasized that the women had been given no passes in terms of physical requirements during their training course.
"Not only did I do everything that every other team member did, I had to work harder to prove myself. We [women] were totally equal, and the commanders didn't go easy on us. The Navy selects people based on their professional abilities, and anything a male … can do, so can a female."
Roni Ben Moshe, also 19, who hails from Nofit in the Jezreel Valley, is also slated for deployment on the INS Hanit, where she will take charge of one of the ship's weapons systems.
"I have a sense of [being on] a mission, because in a certain sense we dictate what women after us will have," Ben Moshe said.
"During the course … everything was very equal. No one went easy on me because I'm a girl, and that's how it will be on the ship. I'm very excited to head out to sea," Ben Moshe said.
