Gaza women being recruited for war - because they are assumed civilian

From Foreign Policy:

Throughout Gaza, armed groups have stepped up their recruitment. Now, each one — including Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — has a female contingent.

No one knows exactly how many female fighters there are in Gaza, but the Nasser Salahuddin Brigade boasts 80 female combatants working in 25-women units. Each unit has female commanding officers, who answer to a male superior. Hundreds of other women also offer support roles.

“We fit the training around our domestic chores,” said Hadifa, 26, her face obscured by a niqab, while cuddling an assault rifle during a midnight meeting at her Gaza City home. She said the women are trained to use sniper rifles, AKs, RPGs, M16s, and also how to drive cars through war zones, how to fight with a knife, and most recently how to capture an Israeli soldier in battle.

Most of the women, like Hadifa, are either married to brigade members or are sisters of the fighters, and were inspired to join the fighting groups after losing several members of their families in the recent wars. It is not hard to see why they would be a military asset: Women have an easier time moving around war zones, due to the presumption that they are civilians. As a result, they can deliver weapons and food to fighters on the front lines with less risk than their male counterparts.

“We also watch the roads, protecting the men as they move,” said Om Adam, 40, the wife of a senior Nasser Salahuddin commander and one of the oldest of the female fighters.

The article also says:

“The war could start any minute,” says Abu Mujahid. “There is a lot of kinetic movement, so all the fighting groups evacuated the bases, we’ve postponed training sessions, and many of the men have moved underground.”

“There are people right now under your feet,” his wiry second-in-command, Abu Saif, 28, adds with a toothless grin.

If there is a new war, you can bet that none of these reporters will mention that women perform military duties when the body count comes in of "innocent women and children."

See also this story from the Times of London last month where they reported that women did fight in Gaza last summer.