JERICHO, Palestinian Territories: Instructors bark orders to a column of Palestinian women recruited to an anti-riot unit, part of an effort to tackle problems caused by conservative attitudes in the West Bank force.
Decked out with helmets, assault boots, batons and shields, the students at the Jericho police school weather a barrage from stone throwers, before rushing to arrest the “troublemakers”.
“There is no difference between the training for men and women for combat abilities and searching cars and houses,” said one of the instructors, Lieutenant Naama Shalalfat.
“Law enforcement is not reserved for men,” she told AFP.
The recruits, who are taking classroom lessons to supplement the training exercises, belong to a new all-female anti-riot unit, which will be made up of 220 members and will be deployed across the West Bank when it is operational.
Colonel Ramadan Awad, deputy police chief for the West Bank, says the unit was formed in response to problems caused by old attitudes towards women in the territory.
“The idea behind training this unit goes back to 2009, when a women’s demonstration in the streets of Hebron (in the West Bank) degenerated into acts of vandalism, while the police couldn’t intervene because we live in a conservative society,” Awad said.
Lieutenant Osama Awda, 28, says he is “training police officers of both sexes in martial arts and self-defence before moving on to law enforcement”.
He says that with his three colleagues, two men and a woman, he trains 500 female recruits every year. AFP
