The Israeli military on Sunday said that it has disciplined a group of female soldiers who posed for photos in underwear and combat gear and posted the images on Facebook.
The incident was the latest in a string of episodes involving young Israeli soldiers on social media that have drawn reprimand from the military.
Israeli news site Walla said the women were new recruits stationed on a base in southern Israel. One picture showed the soldiers removing their fatigue uniforms to expose their underwear and back sides.
In another, five women posed in what appeared to be a barracks room, dressed only in helmets and a small amount of combat equipment. The faces of the soldiers were blurred in the photos.
In a statement, the military said the young women had acted in a manner that showed “unbecoming behavior” for Israeli soldiers. “The commanding officers disciplined the soldiers as they saw fitting,” it said.
The statement did not identify the soldiers or give any details about the punishments. Military officials said the base conducted educational lectures to keep soldiers from repeating the offense.
Several times in recent years, the Israeli military has disciplined soldiers for what were considered improper postings in social media sites.
In a video posted to YouTube in 2010, a male Israeli soldier was filmed dancing suggestively around a blindfolded Palestinian woman. That incident followed the discovery of photos earlier that year showing a female soldier posing in front of Palestinian prisoners.
Shortly thereafter, the Israeli military banned soldiers from using social media sites while on base. The ban was an effort to prevent future embarrassing posts on social media.
It remains unclear whether the ban is in effect.
Early this year, another soldier was reprimanded for writing anti-Palestinian tweets and posting pictures to multiple social media services showing himself naked with a gun.
Most Jewish Israeli men and women are required to serve in the military, starting at age 18.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS