A medal given to Shin Bet employees on Israel’s 40th anniversary. Photo: public domain.

For the first time in history, women will make up a third of the top brass of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, Israeli media reported on Monday.

Six women will hold senior management positions in the agency beginning in a few months, Channel 12 reported. They will constitute a third of the organization’s senior forum, assuming roles that in the Israel Defense Forces would be equivalent to members of the General Staff, the military’s supreme command.

Four women already serve in top positions in the Shin Bet — namely as heads of its investigative, training, and financial divisions, as well as the agency’s comptroller. They will be joined in the near future by the female heads of the human resources division, which oversees all of the agency’s recruitment, and information technology department, where systems are developed to thwart terrorist threats. “These are systems that intelligence organizations around the world ask Israel to learn about,” Channel 12 noted, underscoring the significance of the division and its lead.

Women have been increasingly joining the upper echelon of the Shin Bet under the leadership of the agency’s chief Ronen Bar. Shortly after assuming his post in October 2021, Bar appointed two women to senior positions, bringing the total number of women in the agency’s top forum to four, a then-unprecedented figure.