Israeli women soldiers reprimanded for posing in underwear

One picture showed four women, who are new recruits, dropping their army trousers to reveal the thongs they were wearing underneath. 

One woman in the photo was dressed only in her bra and pants.

Another image showed five scantily clad recruits wearing only helmets and a small covering of combat equipment.

Walla, an Israeli news website, showed the pictures with faces and exposed areas partly blurred.

The pictures received multiple "likes" on Facebook, along with numerous enthusiastic comments.

The enthusiasm was not shared by Israel's commanding military brass, who announced that the women had been given stern "educational lectures" about their future conduct.

In a statement, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said: "The picture in question represents behaviour unbecoming IDF soldiers. The commanding officers disciplined the soldiers as they saw fitting."

An IDF spokesman said the women had not joined their units when the incidents occurred. There was no question of them being expelled from the army, he said.

The women are understood to have been undergoing basic training at an infantry training school in southern Israel.

The Times of Israel website said that the images had been widely reported in Arab media, with the photographs heavily censored in most cases.

There have been several instances of Israeli soldiers posting embarrassing images on social media, drawing condemnation from the IDF and rebukes from commanding officers.

A video posted on YouTube in 2010 showed a soldier dancing in a suggestive manner around a blindfolded Palestinian woman. Photos had previously been discovered showing a female soldier posing in front of Palestinian prisoners.

Although those incidents prompted the army to ban recruits from using social media while on base, the embarrassments have not abated.

This year, a soldier was reprimanded after posting pictures of himself naked with an army-issue heavy assault weapon, along with incendiary anti-Palestinian tweets.

That incident followed another in which a soldier in an Israeli sniper unit posted a picture of what appeared to be a Palestinian boy in the crosshairs of a rifle target on his personal Instagram page.

Most Israeli men and women are conscripted into the army at the age of 18.