ARAVA DESERT - Slightly weighed down by their battle fatigues and strapped up with combat belts, Leah and Khen, both 20, sling an M16 over their backs and clamber into an enormous jeep before setting out to patrol the Israeli-Jordanian border.
Her face dotted with freckles, Khen is behind the wheel, while Leah gets in the back to take charge of the machinegun.
Seated next to Khen is Eyal, a young man of 20 with a shock of red hair. A Bedouin scout capable of detecting any sign of infiltration on the sand tracks completes the battalion.
Leah, Khen, Eyal and their tracker are part of the first-ever mixed infantry battalion in the Israeli army.
Known as "Caracal" (desert lynx in Hebrew) the unit was formed in 2004, and 70 percent of its members are women.
All are volunteers and do a three-year stint of military service like their male counterparts.
The vast majority of young Israeli women serve in non-combat units and their tour of duty is only two years.
Three companies of the battalion take part in surveillance of the 200 kilometre (125 mile) border between Israel and Jordan which stretches from the southernmost tip of the Dead Sea, down the eastern flank of the Arava desert, to the port city of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba.
The fourth company is deployed in the Qalqilya region in the northern West Bank.
This summer, the batallion will be relieved by reservists so it can take part in the operation to evacuate the 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Members of the battalion have to take classes for four months to learn the basic skills necessary for an elite unit: handling weapons, throwing grenades and fighting manoeuvres.
In the Arava border area, their mission is to prevent infiltrations by hostile parties, smuggling and ensure the security of the sparse local population.
The patrols are conducted night and day along the border which is dotted with lookout posts.
The rules of engagement are very strict following the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994.
"The flight of a frightened gazelle or a wild boar which has been startled by our spotlight is sometimes the only thing that happens on a night patrol," Leah says.
"Sometimes we come across smugglers who are trying to bring in drugs or prostitutes", adds Eyal. "When I go out on patrol with the girls, I know that I can count on them if there's any trouble.
"We do everything together -- except sleeping and taking showers," he says, rebutting a recent article in the Israeli press which claimed the batallion is characterised by bed-hopping.
Several random huts with birds nesting on the roof serve as their base.
Inside are bedrooms and showers, a dining room, kitchen, an infirmary, and even an air-conditioned club room with a television, table football and table-tennis which was funded by a Jewish family in France.
A makeshift smoking corner with several worn sofas has been set up outside under a camouflaged canopy.
Three days of leave are permitted every fortnight but it takes practically a day to reach the remote base from anywhere in Israel.
It was only 10 years ago that Israel began allowing women to serve in combat positions.
The move came after a young Israeli called Alice Miller took the airforce to court for automatically barring her, a licensed commercial pilot and aeronautics student, from entering its prestigious flight academy.
Her appeal came shortly after she was turned down by Israel's former president and airforce chief Ezer Weizmann, who died in late April.
His response was characteristically blunt: "Listen, maidele (missy), have you ever seen a young man darning socks?" he retorted.
But she won the case, with the Israeli Supreme Court ruling in 1995 that the airforce could no longer exclude qualified women from its pilots' training programme.
Since then, the airforce has counted one woman pilot among its ranks.
05/02/2005 11:24 GMT