A Canadian-born woman who served in the Israeli military and later joined a Kurdish militia fighting the Islamic State group has returned to Israel. Gill Rosenberg told Israel's Army Radio Monday that after eight months of fighting in Syria, it was time to come home. She said her Jewish values compelled her to "do the right thing not just by our own people, but by any human being." Rosenberg served in the Israeli military and was previously a pilot in Canada. She spent time in a U.S. prison for her part in a phone scam before joining the Kurdish militia last year. She was among the first female volunteers to fight in the Syrian civil war. Later, there were false reports that she had been captured by Islamic State group. The 31-year-old said the lessons of the Holocaust drove her to help protect the Kurds and other Middle East minorities menaced by Islamic State advances. "I think we as Jews, we say 'never again' for the Shoah, and I take it to mean not just for Jewish people, but for anyone, for any human being, especially a helpless woman or child in Syria or Iraq," Rosenberg told Army Radio. "But in the past few weeks I think a lot of the dynamics have changed there, in terms of what's going on in the war. The Iranian involvement is a lot more pronounced. Things changed enough that I felt that it was time to come home." Rosenberg started out with Kurdish YPG guerrillas in Syria before moving to the Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia in Iraq. Both countries are formally at war with Israel, which bars its citizens from traveling there. Iran is among regional powers sending forces to battle Islamic State in Iraq. Israel's Shin Bet security agency said it questioned Rosenberg after she landed in Tel Aviv. It did not elaborate on whether she would face criminal charges for unauthorized travel, but an Israeli justice official told Reuters it appeared unlikely. Rosenberg's native Canada, from which she emigrated alone to Israel, had also urged her to get out of Syria. The Canadian Embassy in Israel did not immediately comment on her return. U.S. authorities could pose more of a challenge, however. In 2009, Rosenberg was arrested in Israel over an international phone scam and extradited to the United States, where she served time in prison. Yahel Ben-Oved, one of her lawyers, said Rosenberg won early release in 2013 on condition that she remain paroled either on U.S. or Israeli soil. "I believe she may have violated this by going to Syria," Ben-Oved told Reuters. "This could be a problem for her." U.S. officials said they were looking into the case. Rosenberg declined a Reuters request for an interview, saying she would speak to foreign media later in the week. Reuters sources familiar with the YPG and Dwekh Nawsha confirmed that Rosenberg had served with both. "We were under 2 kilometers [1 mile] from Daesh [Islamic State] the whole time, for the most part," Rosenberg told Army Radio. "There were some pretty major fire fights, but, you know, a lot of it was just holding lines." She said she was ordered to keep quiet about her Israeli citizenship while with the YPG, a militia with a historically pro-Palestinian leaning. "The Kurds love Israel. They love Israel and they love the Jewish people. But among the ranks of the YPG there's also local Arabs and other people who might not be such big fans of Israel," she said.
