When the IDF Paratroopers 890th Battalion Aid Station was given orders to move south and join ground maneuvers planned during Operation Guardian of the Walls, Lt. Dr. Nofit Shmuel's heart began to pound.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
She collected her soldiers, asked them to prepare bags with all the medical equipment they'd need, and informed paramedics and reservists to be ready for a call-up should the need arise. "Be ready for war," was the message.
A few hours later, Shmuel, 28, was on her way to a briefing in the western Negev. On route, there were constant rocket alerts, but they didn't bother here. Nor did concerns about entering enemy territory, or the possibility of being taken captive. All she was thinking about was her soldiers' level of training and well-being, and that her battalion aid station perform at its best.
"When I decided I was going to serve as a doctor in the military, I knew I wanted to be in the field and save lives," Shmuel says. "If it's not in the field, it's not being a doctor, as far as I'm concerned."
Six months ago, Shmuel became the first female combat doctor in an IDF Paratroopers division, and only the second to serve in that capacity in the IDF ground forces. By doing so, she is helping pave the way for other women to serve in combat roles that were previously barred to them.
"There's no such thing as 'limits,'" she says. "Limits are only in your head, and if you get rid of them there, you'll continue to move ahead without anything stopping you. My mom always told me I could do whatever I wanted. When I was a kid, I wanted to be able to say, 'You can do it,' because I could."
Q: Still, going into Gaza is scary. Very.
"Fears are natural, especially when the fighting is supposed to be taking place on their turf, but I don't talk about those fears. The various abduction scenarios are there at the subconscious level, but I didn't really have time to sit and think about what would happen if God forbid something went wrong and I was taken. These thoughts only let in fear, and fear detracts from resilience and confidence."
Eventually, Shmuel and her battalion aid station were scrambled to help with the rioting that erupted in northern Israel, near Metulla.
"I don't feel like I missed anything or disappointment about not going into Gaza. At the end of the day, my job is to take care of the soldiers' lives. I'm not looking for adventures that will cost lives, because that's what would have happened if we'd gone in [to Gaza]. I just want my soldiers to come back safe," she says.
Shmuel talks to Israel Hayom at "Little Gaza," a mock-up of an urban warfare scene at Tzeelim Base, considered the biggest of its kind in the world. It was built to mimic the streets and alleys of Gaza – with mosques, burned-out cars, and Arabic graffiti. Shmuel walks toward us, separating from a group of a few dozen equipment-laden troops. Her small figure is jarring, but she smiles.
"I have a lot of different sides. I can be the girliest in the world and wear heels and makeup, and I can be the most extreme combatant," she says.
When she asked the soldiers to circle around for a briefing to lead off a drill of a mass-casualty event, her voice is authoritative, and she speaks clearly and succinctly.
"Today, we'll practice opening veins, treating the wounded, and triage," she tells them, instructing some of them to smear themselves with fake blood. "Be concentrated and thorough. Today, it's just a drill, but tomorrow you could find yourselves doing it for real, with the lives of the soldiers next to you in your hands," she says.
From one of the structures in the training facility, we can already see a few soldiers lying on the ground, their faces, hands, legs, and stomachs liberally marked with fake blood. They yell with pain and plead for aid. Shmuel approaches the first soldier she meets, and instructs the medic about how to deal with a wounded soldier in field conditions – how to place a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and how to check for wounds that might not be immediately visible.
"It's great that there's a doctor in the field in real time, but the first person they encounter there are themselves, so that's why this drill is so important. Every combat soldier carries a tourniquet, and in real time, in a second, he can stop bleeding. The more we drill possible scenarios, the less likely they'll be to freeze in a real mass casualty event. If I have two medics who can't get to a vein, the drill will continue until they succeed," Shmuel explains.
After an hour, Shmuel deems the drill a success. She is visibly proud of how her soldiers conducted themselves, and they love her.
"She's with us through fire and water. I can't imagine the battalion aid station without her," says one of the medics.
"If there's anyone I'd want with me in an emergency or a war, it's her," another one chimes in.
"I'm 28, and they're like my little brothers," Shmuel smiles. "I know all the soldiers from all the companies and they feel very comfortable with me, and often come to me for advice on all sorts of personal issues, so I know I fit in well and they see me as one of their own."
Shmuel was born in Beersheba in April 1993, the oldest daughter of parents who made aliyah from India. Her father, Yitzhak, 59, who works at a fertilizer factory and as a driving teacher, arrived in Israel at age three. Her mother, Nurit, 53, made aliyah when she was 15.
Shmuel has three siblings: Adir, 26, a computer engineering student; Orel, 22, a fashion design student; and Tohar, 14.
She lives in Beersheba with her partner, Levy Brown, 28, an American who arrived in Israel as a lone soldier from North Carolina and served in the 401st Armored Division. They intend to get married next year. They have a Husky, Roy, who has blue eyes.
"I met Levy after he was out of the army and I was on vacation after my sixth year of medical school and my internship," Shmuel says. "That same day, I fought with my sister Tohar, and to work off some energy I went to a climbing wall in Beersheba with her. She's a member of the climbing team.
"At some point she disappeared on me. It turned out she'd gone to pet some dog. It was something we'd always dreamed of, but because my dad's allergic [to dogs] we couldn't have one. Suddenly, Levy arrived as asked me if it was my dog … He smiled and his smile enchanted me. That moment, I knew he'd be my husband, that he was the sunshine of my life."
Q: Love at first sight?
"That's exactly it. We started to talk and I felt like we'd known each other all our lives. We both like extreme sports, we both traveled in Iceland, we've both parachuted. He also felt an insane connection, and when my mom came to pick us up I told her I'd get back on my own.
"A few hours later, when he dropped me off, he said that he was supposed to go back to the US in three weeks to start studying structural engineering. We managed to go on a date, and I asked him to stay, but he said it was impossible. We decided to stay in touch long distance and meet on vacations. After a few weeks, he told me he loved me, and after seven months apart and after he finished his first semester, she came to Israel and just stayed with me. A week later we moved in together, and today he's studying structural engineering at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba."
Even as a child, Shmuel was an excellent student.
"I learned to read when I was in nursery school, and the teacher told my parents that I was advanced for my age," she says. "I would put together difficult puzzles and wouldn't leave them until I was finished. My parents didn't withhold anything from me. Every time something new came out, they'd rush and buy it for me. Even know, I remember the electronic encyclopedia they bought me. When I got to school and I'd show them a good grade, they always asked why it wasn't higher. Every year, I'd get a certificate of excellence, and my father would frame it. He has a large collection of my certificates."
Q: In your free time, were you a tomboy?
"Not at all. You'd never expect me to wind up in combat. I was a classic 'girl.' I played with Barbies until I was older and kept out of the sandbox. Still, I always felt there were other sides to me. I was great at sports and I really loved paintball. I wasn't in a youth movement, but on school field trips I always walked up front with the guide. I was very opinionated. It's wasn't easy to define me."
In high school, Shmuel was in a gifted class on a science track, and was sent to take part in gifted programs at the Weizmann Institute.
"It was a three-year program in which we met with the greatest researchers in Israel," she says. "I helped with research on AIDS and cancer that that gave me another five points on my matriculation certificate, in addition to the five points [highest-level exams] I did in biology, physics, math, and English."
When she was 12, she decided to become a doctor after first learning about the human body.
"I had an encyclopedia about the human body that there was a picture of a surgeon holding a real heart. From that moment, every time I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never said a teacher or a dancer like the other girls, I said I wanted to be a surgeon and hold a heart in my hands."
When Shmuel turned 18, she realized that she was closer than ever to realizing her dream. She was invited to the prestigious medical military deferment track [in which the IDF pays for medical school for selected candidates and they sign on as officers after their studies] and decided that was the direction for her. "At the conference to introduce us to the track five doctors from combat units spoke with us, and I remember sitting there and looking at the entire panel and there wasn't even one female doctor there. I told myself that one day, I'd be there."
Focused on her goal, Shmuel declined invitations to try out for some of the most-desired programs in the IDF, putting all her eggs in the medical school basket.
After earning a high enough grade on her entrance exam and passing the interview stage, she received the notification that she'd been accepted. "It was in September 2012, a day after Yom Kippur. I was so happy, because as far as I was concerned, the track was the way to make it to medicine and save soldiers' lives," she says.
On Oct. 10, 2012, she enlisted in the IDF, receiving both a soldier's ID and proof of deferment, and headed for the medical school at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"I was in the fourth class of the Tzameret [Peak] program and was studying alongside regular [post-military] medical students," she says. "Those were very tough, very intense years. The difficulty wasn't just because of the studies. Think about it – between my first and second year, instead of resting, I was in basic training, and between the second and third year I did officers training; and between the third and fourth year, the medic's course. In addition, we had special courses and technical lessons about military medicine like naval medicine or air medicine, lectures on new studies about treating battlefield wounds, all on our vacations. There was no time to breathe."
"For seven years of studies, your life is on hold, and in the end, you're facing a long military service."
In her second year of medical school, then-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz came to lecture Shmuel and her comrades. "One of the questions I asked him was why female IDF doctors weren't assigned to combat units. His answer was that physiologically, they weren't equal to the men. I remember that I told myself, 'No way," and decided, again, that I wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than combat medicine."
Q: How did you become such a fighter? Did you always want to break down barriers?
"I come from a home in which Zionism was very strong. It didn't matter how hard it was for my parents. They never said a bad word about the country, and that's something I absorbed from the day I was born."
"What's more, my father fought in the Armored Corps during the first Lebanon War, and every time he'd meet with his friend, I'd listen to his army stories. It always thrilled me. My mother grew up in a religious home, so she didn't go into the army. My brother Adir served in a technical role in the IAF and my sister Orel was at a religious high school, so she did national service. So you could say I'm the 'most combat' at our house."
In her sixth year of medical school, Shmuel was part of a medical student exchange at a trauma center in Baltimore, where she fulfilled her dream of holding a human heart. "I was there for about a month with three other students from my class. It was a very advanced trauma center, and every hour someone would come in with a gunshot wound.
"One day, when I was on the cardiovascular surgery unit, there was a heart transplant. When I realized I was about to hold a heart, I was so excited. It was beyond my every expectation, and I even had a picture taken that was just like the picture in the book I saw when I was 12."
Upon returning to Israel from Baltimore, Shmuel began a surgical residency at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, but eventually opted to specialize in plastic surgery.
"I transferred to the plastic surgery department at Hadassh Ein Karem. The first surgery [I did] was on a hand and the second one was a corrective surgery for a cleft palate on a little girl. I fell in love with it immediately and decided I wanted to fix birth defects in children. In that department I was also exposed to doctors who had served as combat doctors in the army. The department head had been a doctor with the Shayetet 13 Unit and his deputy was with the Sayeret Matkal. They were more commanding that more daring than the doctors who weren't from that background," she recalls.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
On April 4, 2020, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, Shmuel started her military service. "Suddenly, at age 27, I was going home on weekend leave and wearing a uniform all the time. It was tough. Also, there was a lot of competition for the assignments I wanted and that brought with it a lot of tension."
At the end of her training, assignments opened up, including on with the 890th Paratroops Battalion.
Shmuel, who realized that was her chance to become a combat doctor, reached out to the battalion commander and told him she wasn't willing to compromise on anything less than serving there. "I knew that as far as the exams had gone, I'd passed with flying colors, but even at that stage, there was only one female combat doctor, who was in Givati. I didn't mean to miss my chance."
Q: Did you feel they would have preferred to choose a male doctor?
"I felt that because the job had always gone to men, the natural choice would be a man. I knew that a brave step needed to be taken to break through that barrier, and I knew I was no less good than any male doctor who was there and there was no reason for them not to take me. When I was summoned for an interview with the deputy chief medical officer, I told him that it was my mission. He asked if it would be too hard for me to be far from home and dragging weight around, and I told him no, that I could do anything I would need to."
Q: Did that question make you mad?
"Questions like that always come up. Frequently, they made it a point to stress that the paratroopers go deep into enemy territory when they need to, and wanted to know if I would. I always said that if I'm the battalion's doctor in ordinary times, I'm their doctor in war, too. After the interview with the battalion commander, who is a big supporter of integrating women into combat roles, I got my answer, and couldn't stop crying from joy."
In October 2020, Shmuel reported for service with the 890th Battalion, just in time for a drill in the north of Israel.
For three days, she marched alongside the soldiers, day and night, climbed Mount Hermon with equipment on her back, wore blister on her feet that caused all the skin to peel off, and also treated all the soldiers who were injured, became dehydrated, or passed out. For her, it was baptism by fire in which she proved to everyone that she was worthy of the job, and most importantly – that they could depend on her.
"Those were three really intensive days. I was short of sleep, I lived on battle rations, I didn't shower, and I slept in the field with the soldiers," she says. "The battalion chief medical officer was always referring injured soldiers to me, while I was injured myself, and still, I didn't break and I never took a ride, not once."
Q: Did you feel that you needed to prove yourself?
"Yes, but not because I'm a woman, but because I was new. I always feel like the burden of proof is one me, with everything."
Q: How did the soldiers accept you?
"At first, they were skeptical. On the second day, they explained how to treat feet that wouldn't stop bleeding because of the peeling skin. They told me that the most helpful thing was to stick on medical gauze and ignore the pain, and that's what I did. It takes mental strength to ignore pain, and when the drill ended, all their doubts disappeared, and they told me I was awesome and went the entire way with them, without hopping on the Hummer even once, or fainting. It was the moment they saw me as a combat soldier, one of their own."
When the drill was over, Shmuel and the rest of the battalion took up positions near Mount Dov on the northern border, and she became the first woman to serve in the area, which has been a bone of contention since the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. The question of who controls it has frequently prompted Hezbollah to attack IDF outposts in the area, as well as border communities, and carry out a number of attempted breaches of the border fence as well as attempted abductions.
Q: What was the day like at the outpost?
"In the day, I'd give any medical treatment that was required, and at 2:30 a.m. I'd get up and go out for a quiet patrol with the soldiers to prevent incursions. One time, we caught a shepherd who had crossed the border into Israel."
Q: Were you in life-threatening situations?
"Every action there is life-threatening. The territorial outcroppings are right up against the border, which is hilly territory with thick fog, so the security cameras don't always pick up on everything that's happening. Almost every time I walked in the wadi, I'd see Hezbollah soldiers watching us from across the border. There used to be plenty of border breaches by terrorists, and more than once they'd put bombs on the road. But not while I was there, fortunately.
"Recently, we were deployed in Judea and Samaria and there were life-threatening situations like having Molotov cocktails thrown at us, shooting attacks, and rioting. Rioting can go from zero to 100 in seconds.
"The operational incident that most sticks out in my minds took place during Guardian of the Walls, when we were sent to the north after mortars were fired on Israel. It was an operation by combined forces. We wore ceramic vests and carried full equipment through a minefield with our weapons loaded, ready for any scenario. The goal was to stop anyone who tried to cross the border during the riots, and we knew that in the crowd, there were Hezbollah operatives and we were exposed to sniper fire.
"Of course, I was the only female fighter in the field, among dozens of male soldiers, and I won't forget the look of astonishment from the Yahalom soldiers when they realized I'd be alongside them. They asked if it was regulation for me to be there. In situations like that, you're totally focused on the mission, and there's no room for fear."
In March 2021, Shmuel had a chance to complete a jump course. Unfortunately, she was injured hours before her first scheduled jump.
"Apparently, the drill we'd been doing injured one of my vertebrae, but I hadn't managed to check it out. I'd been looking forward to the jump and was awfully disappointed. I cried about missing out, but I have no doubt I'll jump on the next course."
Q: Do you feel that you're breaking down barriers?
"Absolutely. Every woman who does a job like this gives other women strength and courage. I have no doubt that the next time they want to assign a woman to this role, it will be easier, and women will dare more to request combat roles.
"You need to understand that the only limitations are in our heads, not our gender. It all depends on how strong you are mentally to do things that the environment says you aren't capable of doing. I'm waiting for the day when women in combat will be something routine, and there won't be any need to write articles about it. That will be a great feeling of victory."
