A 35-year-old mother of two, identified only as “Lieutenant Colonel G,” broke a glass ceiling in the Israeli Air Force with her appointment as the first female commander of an operational squadron in the IAF.
“Congratulations … we’ve been waiting for you for 71 years,” IAF Cmdr. Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin said at the ceremony on the night of September 24.
Norkin called Lt. Col. G “a role model and an inspiration for thousands of women in the State of Israel.”
She will be commanding Squad 122, known as the Nachshon Squadron. From 2014 to 2017, she was deputy commander of this squadron, which flies intelligence-gathering missions out of Nevatim Air Base near Beersheva.
Lt. Col. G began her military service in 2003 and became a transport plane pilot with the 131st and 135st squadrons.
Another woman, Lt. Col M, was appointed to command the IAF’s operational command and control unit. She is the first female air-traffic controller to reach that rank.
In 2001, Lt. Roni Zuckerman, the granddaughter of two of the 34 surviving fighters from the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, became the first female jet-fighter pilot in the IAF.
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