Paula, 27 years old, a university student of computer systems, a native of Montevideo, came to live in Israel seven years ago to agree – perhaps unintentionally – with the “founding father”, Ben Gurion, who in 1948 insisted – something unusual in that world – in which women completed military service, still today a current obligation and a symbol of the equality of sexes that Israel has always boasted of, especially in view of the role of women in the regional court.
The meeting is at one in the afternoon at the Defense Force spokesperson building in Tel Aviv, a movement of soldiers, mostly women in their twenties, who come out to the entrance gate to collect the bags of food delivered to their homes, healthy food, I would say.
Paula cannot give her last name or details of her rank except that she is a reservist. On the night of October 6, she celebrated the anniversary party of her best friend, from Buenos Aires, and she went to bed at five in the morning. A couple of hours later she was in the shelter in the basement of her building and 72 hours later she was in uniform at the barracks where she was sent following an urgent request from the army. There she spent the first ten days instructing combat units about the devices and mines that await them in Gaza, an urban network that raises fears of scavengers like those suffered by Americans in Fallujah and other cities in Iraq.
Almost three hundred thousand reservists went from civilian life to military life in hours, which is quite compromised when your country declares a state of war.
Paula is from a Jewish family, Uruguayan parents, Polish grandparents who survived the Holocaust and a Galician great-grandmother, surnamed Carvallo.
“When I arrived in Israel, when I was twenty years old, I joined the army and stayed there for ten months. And then I did a year and a half of military service (women serve 24 months, men 32). My role now is explosives instructor. "I teach the combatants the different forms of explosives and mines, how to deactivate them." A unique specialty, even artisanal. Paula doesn't see any merit in it, it's about learning and then teaching.
Since she was called to rejoin – a commitment that expires in her case in 2036 – and after those ten days, she has been in the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas terrorists, who left unexploded material – many grenades – and possible traps. .
–You're going back to Uruguay, right?
That was the message from his brothers, twins, on October 7. Latin culture is not exactly very supportive of sacrificing oneself for the collective. Israel still has an exceptional patriotic magnetism, which the wars have not worn down. On the contrary. Nobody hesitates: we must enter Gaza.
The Israeli army is full of reservists who could have returned to their countries of origin, what is commonly known as “the escape.” This does not seem to be the case with Israel.
–In Uruguay, in Spain, people come together... for football. What impressed me most about Israel is the feeling of community and unity in difficult times. And I answered my brothers no, because this is my house. This is where I want my children to be born. I will never pack my bags from here.
In hours, in days, Paula is called to participate in a land war of high mortality. For Palestinians and for Israelis. Relentlessly.
–I am a simple girl, normal, like anywhere in Europe, in Spain, who studies and joins the army because it is my home and it is the only way to defend ourselves. I don't teach how to kill people. And I have no doubt: we never attack, we defend ourselves.
Paula rejects that the massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7 can be equated with the massacre of Palestinian civilians due to the air attacks on Gaza. “It is Hamas that uses them as shields and does not facilitate their movement to the south, as our Government asks them to do. Can you imagine some masked men on the streets of Barcelona, armed with Kalashnikovs, killing civilians?”
The culture of the Israeli army is blunt with any type of sexual harassment, machismo or discrimination against LGTBI soldiers. Another rarity in the region.
“I never felt like I was less than a man and I am surrounded by them,” she says. Respect, not even jokes. Harassment is closely monitored and the punishments are clear. I have gay friends and in the best units. If someone is discriminated against, there is punishment. There is no place for discrimination.”
