The Israeli military has disciplined a group of female soldiers who posted photos of themselves in underwear on Facebook.

One picture shows the soldiers exposing their underwear and bottoms. In another, five women pose only in helmets and a small amount of combat equipment. The faces of the soldiers were blurred.

An Israeli news organisation said the women were new recruits at a base in southern Israel.

In a statement, the military said the young women had acted in a manner that showed “unbecoming behaviour” for Israeli soldiers. “The commanding officers disciplined the soldiers as they saw fitting,” it said.

In the past few years, the Israeli military has disciplined a number of soldiers for posting offensive images and comments on social media sites.

In a 2010 video on YouTube, a male Israeli soldier dances suggestively around a blindfolded Palestinian woman. Earlier in the same year, photos circulated on the internet of a woman soldier posing in front of Palestinian prisoners.

Early this year, a soldier was reprimanded for writing anti-Palestinian tweets and posting pictures to multiple social media services showing himself naked with a gun.

(Agencies and Aljazeera.com)