Gill Rosenberg

Gill or Gila (Gillian Chelsea Clarissa) Rosenberg (; born 1983) is an Israeli woman who became internationally known when she became the first female foreigner to join the Women's Protection Units fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Islamists claimed that Rosenberg had become an ISIL hostage, leading to significant additional press coverage. These reports proved false.

Early life Gill Rosenberg was born in Canada and is reported to be from White Rock, British Columbia. She attended a Jewish high school in Vancouver and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). She had worked as a pilot on Boeing passenger aircraft.

Rosenberg moved to Israel and also acquired Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, living in Tel Aviv. In Israel, Rosenberg joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from 2006 to 2008 as a volunteer, where she served as a SAR NCO and instructor at the Home Front Command's Search, Rescue and Civil Defense School.

Criminal conviction In 2009, Rosenberg was arrested, extradited to the United States, and pleaded guilty to participating in a telemarketing lottery fraud. As part of a plea bargain, she was sentenced to four years in prison in a Manhattan federal court, but later her sentence was reduced before she was deported to Israel.

Joining the Kurds Rosenberg gained international press coverage as the first foreign woman to join Kurds battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria or Iraq. According to an interview with Kol Yisrael (Israel Radio) quoted by The Jerusalem Post she decided to join the Women's Protection Units, the female counterpart of the People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters, for humanitarian and ideological reasons and "because they are our brothers" who are fighting evil. the Israeli government had also cracked down on those going to fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In late November 2014, militants on social media started claiming that Rosenberg had been captured, along with several other female fighters, by ISIL, perhaps during the Siege of Kobanî. This was denied by Kurdish officials If captured, she would have been the second Israeli dual citizen, after American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff, and the first Canadian, to be held hostage by ISIL.