After years of service in the Haganah and the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Shoshana Werner was appointed as the second commanding officer of the Women’s Corps of the Israel Defense Forces in 1949.

Stella Levy was an early leader of the Women’s Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, serving as commanding officer from 1964 to 1970.

Shoshana Gershonowitz was a leading woman soldier in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II and in the early years of the Women’s Corps in the Israel Defense Forces.

Mina Ben-Zvi was among the first women to serve in the military in Palestine, first as part of the British Auxiliary Territorial Service, then in local Zionist paramilitary organizations that eventually became the Israeli Defense Forces. She became the first commanding officer of the IDF’s Women’s Corps in 1948.

During World War II, only when the Yishuv’s Council of Women’s Organizations called for the recruitment of women was an agreement reached with the British authorities to enlist women living in Palestine into the forces. The first to join were in the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Serivce) followed by the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force).