"Women can do everything": The young woman who outpaced the boys in crawling - and became a combat fitness star
The video of 17-year-old Ayelet Shahar in a combat fitness training session went viral within hours. Leaving the boys behind with determined crawling and marking her next target in the Oketz unit, she proves that perseverance and hard work are the key to any summit. "Women can bring so much color and flavor to the army, it's time we move forward," she explains.
Ayelet Shahar woke up in the morning and realized that her combat fitness training had become the most viral thing on the web. "It's crazy," says Ayelet. "The amount of responses and support I received from people is something I didn't expect. I came to train, I came to progress, and that's what I reached. I think it's amazing." The video, which captures seconds of supreme effort, dust, and fast crawling, became overnight more than just another documentation of a routine training. For many, this video of 17-year-old Shahar is perhaps the most crushing answer to anyone who still doubts the abilities of women to serve as combat soldiers. On the training field, when the instructor shouts: "Who is arriving first?" and immediately after: "Go!", Shahar leaves no room for doubt.
The sky is the limit
"Come on, Ayelet, tear it up!", the shouts are heard in the background while she moves forward with determination. "Women can do everything," she declares with confidence. — "Every person can do everything, as long as they persevere, invest, and work on themselves. The sky is the limit, and women can bring so much color and flavor to the army. And there is nothing like women in the world."
Shahar's perseverance is not a trivial matter. Her instructor, Ron Atias, CEO of Insane Combat Fitness, tells about her exceptional commitment: "Ayelet always comes to extra training sessions. If she is now in Rishon LeZion, she comes to training sessions also in Tel Aviv. And once a person comes, perseveres, and gives of themselves, then you see results exactly as you saw in the last video, that she can even reach a situation where she overtakes teenagers of her age."
At the end of another successful heat, Atias smiles: "Ayelet, once again, you won again." When one of the boys in the group was asked how it feels to lose to her, he answers: "Listen, it's something, she's a cannon, I have nothing to say. But wow, it's our loss, we have to overtake her." When another member of the group was asked about the ego issue, he admits honestly: "I can say that all the girls in Insane, including Ayelet, are cannons. Yes, it touches the ego a bit, after all. You want to reach as far as possible."
Changing the trend since October 7
Data supports the reality that Shahar and her friends are creating on the ground. As of today, about a fifth of all combat soldiers in the IDF and Magav are women, a figure that was previously considered imaginary and continues to soar since October 7. Despite this, voices are heard daily speaking out against the integration of women in field roles in the army.
About half a year ago, Yinon Magal, host of The Patriots, held a discussion on the subject of integrating women into the army and claimed that they should not be recruited at all. "I am against women in the army in general," he said. "Not that I think they can't. There can be women combat soldiers. I am against it. I think the army is a masculine event and men should manage the army. By the way, no problem, they want? Let them make women's units. No need to mix the sexes. It creates tensions and it should be avoided."
In another discussion held on the same channel, panelist Yonatan Yifrach said: "In a period when we are constantly telling the Haredi public, 'Come, enlist, we want victory', I don't know how much this pilot really shows the true intentions of the IDF, how much the IDF really wants to win. We know it harms the fighting." The program's host, Boaz Golan, claimed that for the sake of the agenda, for the sake of the perception, they checked a box and thus women were trained to integrate into the combat array.
Shahar answers the critics: "To all those people who say that women cannot reach the army and not be combat soldiers, and that they destroy, spoil the system, let them come to see our training sessions, let them see how we cope, what champion and amazing girls we have. Women can do everything."
Against these claims, Shahar offers a different angle on the contribution of women to the military system: "Women, there are so many things in them, that probably men also have, but women have crazy emotional intelligence, which men don't always have. They can add so much color and so much interest, a little to renew the system. It's time we move forward."
Next target: Oketz unit
The experience on the ground supports her words. Instructor Ron Atias, who served himself in a special unit, testifies to Shahar's abilities: "She is a cannon and she is strong, and there is no doubt that once she persevered in training and once she said, 'Come on, I am giving my 200 percent', yes, she beat the boys even in the crawling competition."
Shahar was indeed surprised that she became a viral symbol overnight, but her head is already deep inside the next selection stages. When she is asked where she will be in a year, she has no need for time to think. "With God's help in Oketz, an officer in Oketz," she says with a wide smile. "I really want this unit, it's an amazing unit, in my opinion, they do holy work, and there is nothing like Oketz."
With the determination she showed in the crawling and the overwhelming support she received on the web, it seems that Shahar is not only crawling towards her goal - she is galloping towards it, while shattering on the way a few more glass ceilings and prejudices.
