Israel Security Policy

The need for a strong military posture in the face of the perceived Arab threats to Israel's survival has been endorsed with near unanimity by Israeli policy makers and citizens. Nevertheless, the question of which strategies best ensure national defense has often caused acrimonious national, as well as international, controversy. Events subsequent to Ben-Gurion's initial concepts of national security laid down when Israel was founded in 1948, particularly Israel's occupation of Arab territories since the June 1967 War, have modified the foundations for Israel's concepts of national security.

Over the course of two decades, Israeli combat doctrine underwent several successive revisions, expressed in the plans of Kela, Tevin, Oz, Gideon, and Tenuva. The first review took place after the first Gulf War, the second after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the third review came after the Summer War. The fourth was brought about by the “Arab Spring,” especially the repercussions of the explosion of the situation in Syria, and the fifth was the result of the 2014 Gaza War, until the momentum plan. "Tnuva".

The Kela Plan (2003-2006), developed under Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, was based on the idea of “remote warfare”. It called for reducing the size of operating ground forces by 10%, and the rehabilitation and training of forces, to absorb modern programs and weapons. In the wake of Israel's failure in the "Second Lebanon War" in 2006, most of the generals directed their anger at the Keila plan, criticizing the method of managing the war, the reliance on the air force, and neglecting the role of the ground effort.

Since the 2006 war, Israel revisited its whole approach to a future conflict with Hezbollah, earmarking resources and developing the Dahiya Doctrine, which uses disproportionate force and targets civilian infrastructures when the time comes. Coincidently, the author of this doctrine, former Israel army Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, was one of the four generals in the 2023 war-time national unity government and sat on its war council.

The "Dahiya Doctrine" got its name after Israel indiscriminately attacked military and civilian infrastructure in a neighbourhood of Beirut in 2006 following its war with Hezbollah. The policy was first mentioned by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think-tank with close ties to the Israeli political and military establishment. INSS published it in a policy paper "Disproportionate Force: Israel's Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War." The policy stresses that in a conflict with Hamas, the Israeli army should use "force that is disproportionate to the enemy's actions and the threat it poses."

A senior Israeli General, Gadi Eisenkot, speaking to the Israeli press in 2008, said that the Dahiya Doctrine "isn't a suggestion" but a "plan that has already been authorised." In 2006 Israel's then army chief General Dan Halutz boasted that the military would target civilian infrastructure in Lebanon with the aim to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years." Israel implanted such a policy during its attack on Gaza in 2008-2009, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead.

The Tevin Plan (2008-2012) was developed under Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and called for enhancing the efficiency of ground forces, quantitatively and qualitatively. It also called for strengthening the long arm of the Air Force, warning systems, and space espionage, thus achieving a “multi-objective army.” It practically abolished the Kela plan, the theory of “remote warfare,” and the idea of a small and smart army, and returned it to the strategy of rapid, blitzkrieg war, based on strengthening the ground forces alongside the air force. In this plan, there was no compromise between “necessities and risks,” and it turned out that logistical resources It was afflicted with many shortcomings in various elements, such as: confronting short-range missiles, and failures in building force.

The Oz Plan (2011-2014) of Chief of Staff Benny Gantz called for reducing ground forces teams, and increase spending on projects related to intelligence services, advanced combat capabilities of air, land and sea weapons, and projects related to cyber warfare. The Oz plan overthrew the Tevin plan and Ashkenazi’s visions about revitalizing the People’s Army, and with it all the efforts exerted over the past years, including training, maneuvers, and the creation of new ground units. It explains the failure of the plan during the 2014 Gaza war.

The Gideon Plan (2015-2019) developed under Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot envisioned unifying the ground operations arm and the cyber and logistics arm, and forming a coordination center between the various arms of the army and the secret services. It also called for strengthening the Israeli army’s ability to deterrence and operational activity within the framework of "the battle between wars". The plan did not contain anything new, except for the amendments demanded by the Meridor committees in 1986 and 2006, the most important of which was the inclusion of the term defense, along with the terms deterrence, early warning, and battle resolution, to the new strategy. Two new battlefields were added: espionage, electronic piracy, and the struggle to gain international public opinion.

The Tnuva plan (2020-2025) developed under Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi proposed making the army more technological and more lethal, while maintaining the quality of manpower in the army. It proposed raising the level of motivation to serve in the army, and iimproving the suitability of the land arm according to the various variables. It also called for multiplying defense capabilities in the field of cyber, and linking the various arms. The Corona pandemic and the economic and political crisis dealt a strong blow to the “Tnuva” plan, and caused the delay of many items related to the defensive and offensive systems that must be obtained. The Israeli “army” tried to work to replace the concept of military decisiveness, replacing it with the concept of victory, which was the new term. Which was included by Gadi Eisenkot, the former Chief of Staff of the Israeli “Army”, into the Israeli “Army” document in the year 2015.

The Battle of “Saif Al-Quds” proved that the Israeli “Army” was unable to achieve the victory hoped for in the “Tnuva” plan. On the contrary, it was clearly defeated at the level of the military plan in the face of the Palestinian resistance.

It was clear from a review of Israeli combat plans that, within two decades, they underwent approximately five successive reviews, in which the focus on air superiority was clear, and this was gradually reflected in a relative neglect of the ground forces. The military leadership was convinced that maneuver and ground battle belonged to the wars of the past, and that was why their greatest interest was in modernizing and strengthening the air force, to become the basis and focus of actual modernization in the Israeli army. The ongoing Israeli plans confirm the resistance’s state of depletion of the Zionist capabilities on the human and material levels. The direct confrontation has demonstrated the ability of the resistance fighters to confront the enemy army, despite the tireless work to draw lessons. The most prominent feature of the current Israeli intelligence vision was the inability of military intelligence to claim clarity in anticipating the course of events, and the reason for this was the rapid changes in the map of threats in the region that would lead to errors in intelligence estimates, as there was no long-term vision and calculations depend on developments.

A cornerstone of US assistance to Israel was guaranteeing Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME). QME pertains to Israel's ability to defend itself by itself against any combination of Mideast adversaries. Helping Israel maintain its qualitative military advantage enhances security by preventing regional conflict and builds the confidence necessary for Israel to take calculated risks for peace. The annual military assistance that Israel receives constitutes an important part of US support for these objectives. Israel uses this assistance both to procure US-origin defense articles, ranging from ammunition to advanced weapons systems and training, and to develop and support its own defense industry. Washington's decades-long, commitment to Israel's QME has been codified into US law.

Israelis traditionally viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a struggle for survival, convinced that even one military defeat would mean the end of their country. National defense became the first priority, with proportionately more human and material resources devoted to defense than in any other nation in the world. Israelis regarded major conflicts, such as occurred in 1967 and 1973, as "rounds" or battles in a continuous war. Even when it was not engaged in outright combat with its Arab enemies, Israel remained in what General Yitzhak Rabin, who became minister of defense in 1984, called a "dormant war" that, "like a volcano," could erupt with little warning into a major conflagration.

Another premise was that every Arab country was at least a potential member of a unified pan-Arab coalition that could attack Israel--a concept sometimes referred to by Israeli strategic planners as the "extensive threat." To confront this extensive threat, the IDF aimed to have the capability to defend Israel not only against an attack by a single Arab adversary or an alliance of several Arab states, but also against the combined forces of all Arab countries. Israeli strategists felt that planning for such a worst-case scenario was prudent because Arab states had often rhetorically threatened such a combined attack. The concept of extensive threat also justified requests for greater military aid from the United States and protests against United States military support of moderate Arab states that, from the American perspective, posed no credible threat to Israel's security.

Some Israeli military leaders insisted that, despite the 1978 Camp David Accords, Egypt remained a major potential enemy in any future Arab-Israeli war. Moreover, some Israeli strategists worried about threats from outside the Arab world. In a 1981 speech, then Minister of Defense Sharon stated that "Israel's sphere of strategic and security interests must be broadened in the 1980s" to confront new adversaries in Africa and Asia, and cited Pakistan as one potential threat. Some strategists even envisioned Israeli clashes with Iran and India.

At the other end of the spectrum were those who felt that the concept of extensive threat exaggerated the danger to Israel. Some Israeli strategists argued in the late 1980s that the Arab-Israeli conflict was evolving into a bilateral contest between Israel and Syria to which other Arab actors were becoming peripheral. They considered that the IDF for pragmatic reasons should deploy its limited resources to counter the threat of a cross-border attack by Syria. Speaking in 1987, Minister of Defense Rabin stated that Egypt had placed itself "outside the circle of nations at war with Israel" and that the Treaty of Peace Between Egypt and Israel had "significantly altered the Middle East balance of power in Israel's favor."

Demographic and geographic pressures arising from Israel's small size and concentrated population meant that a war fought within Israel would be extremely costly in terms of civilian casualties and damage to the economic infrastructure. Morale and, hence, future immigration would also suffer. It was therefore an ironclad rule of Israeli strategists to transfer military action to enemy territory, and no regular Arab troops have hit on Israeli soil since 1948. Because Israel could never defeat its Arab enemy permanently, no matter how many victories or "rounds" it won on the battlefield, and because in each full-scale war it incurred the risk, however minimal, of combat being conducted on its territory or even a defeat that would destroy the state, Israel's official policy was to avoid all-out war unless attacked. Deterrence therefore became the main pillar of Israel's national security doctrine.

Israel considered an offensive rather than a defensive strategy the best deterrent to Arab attack. Because of the absence until 1967 of the depth of terrain essential for strategic defense, Israel could ensure that military action was conducted on Arab territory only by attacking first. Moreover, Israel feared that a passive defensive strategy would permit the Arabs, secure in the knowledge that Israel would not fight unless attacked, to wage a protracted low-level war of attrition, engage in brinkmanship through incremental escalation, or mobilize for war with impunity. Paradoxically, then, the policy of deterrence dictated that Israel always had to strike first. The Israeli surprise attack could be a "preemptive" attack in the face of an imminent Arab attack, an unprovoked "preventive" attack to deal the Arab armies a setback that would stave off future attack, or a massive retaliation for a minor Arab infraction. Israel justified such attacks by the concept that it was locked in permanent conflict with the Arabs.

The occupation of conquered territories in 1967 greatly increased Israel's strategic depth, and Israeli strategic thinking changed accordingly. Many strategists argued that the IDF could now adopt a defensive posture, absorb a first strike, and then retaliate with a counteroffensive. The October 1973 War illustrated that this thinking was at least partially correct. With the added security buffer of the occupied territories, Israel could absorb a first strike and retaliate successfully.

But when Sharon was appointed minister of defense in 1981, he advocated that Israel revert to the more aggressive pre-1967 strategy. Sharon argued that the increased mechanization and mobility of Arab armies, combined with the increased range of Arab surface-to-surface missile systems (SSMs), nullified the strategic insulation and advanced warning that the occupied territories afforded Israel. Israel, therefore, faced the same threat that it had before 1967 and, incapable of absorbing a first strike, should be willing to launch preventive and preemptive strikes against potential Arab threats. After the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, for which Sharon was substantially responsible, the aggressive national security posture that he advocated waned in popularity. By 1988, however, Iraq's use of SSMs against Iran and Saudi Arabia's acquisition of long-range SSMs from China suggested to some Israeli strategists that the concepts of extensive threat and preemption should again be given more weight.

Israel made clear to the Arabs that certain actions, even if not overtly hostile or aimed at Israel, would trigger an Israeli preemptive attack. Israel announced various potential causes of war. Some causes, such as interference with Israeli freedom of navigation in the Strait of Tiran, were officially designated as such. In 1982 Sharon listed four actions that would lead to an attack: the attempt by an Arab country to acquire or manufacture an atomic bomb, the militarization of the Sinai Peninsula, the entry of the Iraqi army into Jordan, and the supply of sophisticated United States arms to Jordan. In 1988 the government of Israel continued to communicate potential causes to its Arab adversaries. Their tacit acquiescence in these unilateral Israeli demands constituted a system of unwritten but mutually understood agreements protecting the short-term status quo.

Since the establishment of Israel, the IDF has been obliged to deal with terrorist actions, cross-border raids, and artillery and missile barrages of the various Palestinian organizations under the loose leadership of the PLO. The IDF's approach in contending with PLO activity has combined extreme vigilance with prompt and damaging retaliatory measures, including punishment of Arab nations giving sanctuary to terrorists and guerrillas. The presence of innocent noncombatants was not accepted as a reason for withholding counterstrikes. Although striving to limit harm to uninvolved persons, the Israelis gave priority to the need to demonstrate that acts of terrorism would meet with quick retribution in painful and unpredictable forms.

Israeli strategists believed the periodic outbreak of war to be virtually inevitable and that once war broke out it was essential that it be brief and lead to decisive victory. The requirement of a rapid war followed from at least two factors. During full mobilization, virtually the entire Israeli population was engaged in the defense effort and the peacetime economy ground to a halt. Sustaining full mobilization for more than several weeks would prove disastrous to the economy, and stockpiling sufficient supplies for a long war would be difficult and very costly. Experience from past wars also showed Israel that prolonged hostilities invited superpower intervention. As a result, Israeli strategists stressed the need to create a clear margin of victory before a cease-fire was imposed from the outside. This concept was extended in the 1980s, when Israeli military leaders formulated the strategy of engaging in a "war of annihilation" in the event of a new round of all-out warfare. Israel's goal would be to destroy the Arab armies so completely as to preclude a military threat for ten years. Such a scenario might prove elusive, however, because destroyed equipment could be quickly replaced, and the Arab countries had sufficient manpower to rebuild shattered forces.

Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president in 1977, made a brave step and began a direct peace process with Israel. However, Sadat was the only one at that time that made that incredible step. In 1988, the Palestinian people began uprising against Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, yet the uprising gradually declined during 1992. In 1993, P.M. Rabin created shifts in Israel’s strategy by beginning the Oslo process. The main shift in Israel’s strategy, led by P.M. Rabin, was that for the first time Israel’s government recognized the right of the Palestinians to have a country. The principle that Israel would give land and might receive peace was new in Israel’s policy. The Declaration of Principles signed on September 13, 1993 showed clearly that principle the aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process was, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government. The Fatah party wanted to establish the Palestinian state beside Israel (at least as a beginning). Hamas and Islamic Jihad wanted to establish a Palestinian state to replace Israel. According to their view, that state would be an Islamic state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consitently expressed strong opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state of any sort. He believeds Israel must maintain control over all territory west of the Jordan River, which fundamentally contradicts the concept of Palestinian sovereignty and the widely advocated two-state solution. Netanyahu's stance is driven by concerns that a Palestinian state could become a base for future attacks against Israel. Although viewed as its ultimate guarantor of security, the nuclear option did not lead Israel to complacency about national security. On the contrary, it impelled Israel to seek unquestioned superiority in conventional capability over the Arab armies to forestall use of nuclear weapons as a last resort. The IDF sought to leverage its conventional power to the maximum extent. IDF doctrine and tactics stressed quality of weapons versus quantity; integration of the combined firepower of the three branches of the armed forces; effective battlefield command, communications, and real-time intelligence; use of precision-guided munitions and stand-off firepower; and high mobility.

Iran has long been involved in the sponsoring and support of worldwide terror groups and has been officially implicated for its involvement in terrorist activities in several Western states. It provides aid in the form of weapons, training, and funding to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Iraq-based militants, and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 17 February 2010 : "We are threatened by an extremist form of Islam, headed by Tehran, which sends out its tentacles in the form of Hamas and Hizbullah and other terrorist organizations, which undermine the very existence of the State of Israel and speak openly about their desire to destroy it. This was not just a threat against Israel, but against the entire world..."

Iran's behavior suggests that it was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. While denying these allegations, Iran's behavior led to its being sanctioned by various international bodies, including the IAEA and the UN Security Council. Iran has pursued all stages of developing nuclear weapons, including mining uranium, converting uranium to uranium hexafluoride, enriching uranium hexafluoride to obtain high-grade fissile material necessary for military use, and developing an implosion system needed for the detonation of nuclear devices. All this despite Iran's commitment to and ratification of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In addition, Iran has developed weapons systems - primarily medium- and long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads to countries in the Middle East, Europe and eventually North America.

IDF rules of engagement in responses to the "Knife Intifada" in 2016 required the use of the minimum force necessary to neutralize a threat. The debate over the use of deadly force and the army’s rules of engagement, opened a long-running rift among Israelis over the role of the military in Israeli life. " ... an increasingly conservative political leadership has pointed with growing alarm to what they see as military leaders overstepping their boundaries and interfering in civilian affairs. Military leaders accuse the political echelon of making policy decisions that undermine Israel’s security in both the short and long range, driven by thinly veiled ideological and religious considerations wrapped in security arguments that are poorly thought-out and often ignorant. Politicians and public intellectuals, mostly but not only on the right, say the generals’ outspokenness undermines the democratic principle of elected civilians making policy. The debate is filled with ironies. For one, it upends the usual Western pattern of armies staking out the right flank in most national debates. In Israel, especially given the paralysis of the political left, the security establishment has emerged as one of the main voices on the left flank of national discourse... "

The Israeli nonprofit organization Breaking the Silence was established in 2004 by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The purpose of group, which was an organization of veteran combatants who have served in the Israeli military, was to expose Israelis to the reality of everyday life in the occupied territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and to bring an end to Israeli occupation there, according to its website.

On 17 July 2018, Israel’s Parliament passed the so-called “Breaking the Silence” law, which bans nongovernmental organizations and other activist groups from entering Israeli schools and talking to students. "Organizations that undermine Israel and besmirch IDF soldiers will no longer be able to reach Israeli students," Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement. "Breaking the Silence long ago crossed the red lines beyond legitimate discourse when they started libeling Israel in the international arena. As long as they operate against Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) abroad, I won't let them in the education system," Bennett added, the Jerusalem Post reported 17 July 2016.

Military Superiority and the Momentum Multi-Year Plan

https://www.idf.il/media/5hqfcjxm/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A2%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5-%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%A8.pdf

Plan Tnufa / Momentum

The plan, called “Tnufa” in Hebrew and “Momentum” in English, was a priority for Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of the General Staff. The military built Momentum based on the last plan, called Gideon, which was announced in 2015. Having shrunk some land forces units and made them more efficient it will also continue reducing redundant forces, as it did under Gideon from 2015 to 2020. That means decommissioning aging tanks, such as the Merkava Mark III, as well as closing a tank battalion and one squadron. Israel also plans to created an infantry division for rapid maneuver.

At the end of a thorough and thorough process, the "Momentum" plan, the IDF's new multi-year program (2020-2024), was launched 13 February 2020. "Implementation of the plan will enable the IDF to increase substantially," emphasized Chief of Staff, Major General Aviv Kochavi, as he presented it to IDF commanders. In the past year, dozens of teams have been working to critically analyze the strategic-operational reality and the IDF's situation in relation to emerging threats and challenges. By the Minister of Defense and presented to the Prime Minister, and will later be brought to the Cabinet for approval. "The plan will increase the deadly and precisely deadly rate in the IDF, and create conditions for shortening the duration of the campaign," the chief of staff noted.

The "swing" ("multi-year program") was made possible thanks to the long-standing power building in the IDF, especially in light of the achievements of the previous multi-year program, Gideon. Alongside the deadly empowerment, the new program focuses on strengthening readiness and transformation to address relevant new challenges in the arena.

Here are the key issues in the multi-year program 'Tnuva', which will be discussed in detail below:

1. Retaining the best and most qualified people for service in the IDF
2. Empowering the units' capabilities at the IDF operational end
3. Increasing Response to the Third Circuit (Iran)
4. Strengthening intelligence superiority and gathering ability
5. Establishing a digital connectivity infrastructure through which "everyone can talk to everyone" (the commander with the pilot, the tank with the security officer etc.)
6. Expanding the range of arms and scope in all arms
7. Strengthening and readiness of land forces
8. Extracting the air dimension in general and the multi-arm maneuver in particular
9. Adapt training to the challenges of urban space and the expected enemy outline (Reality training)
10. Expanding Defense Capability - Air Defense, Border and Smart Space
11. Organizational alignment of the IDF General Staff and Headquarters
12. Implementing a military culture - the army by profession, the culture of inquiry, discipline

Formation of the Plan, according to the IDF, which brings to light the principles of readiness, variability and leadership, was done after a thorough diagnosis, which led to the designing of the IDF program 2030, and writing the operating concept for victory. The essence of this concept was to significantly increase the military advantage in order to defeat the enemy and to increase the precise attack capability, all through raising target failure and strengthening the IDF's operational edge. Extensive parts of the program are realized through the resources available to the IDF (Budget 2020 and the US Aid Agreement) and from a budget that the IDF was directing through an internal change process, which includes closing old frameworks and internal prioritization.

The Tnovah Plan (Motive Force), which was drawn up by the Chief of Staff, Aviv Kochavi, in June 2019, to replace the Gideon Plan from the beginning of 2020 for a period of 5 years, focused on integrating forces and technologies into the army, as a unit was created that includes military intelligence and the air force. And the three regional commands, in addition to focusing on artificial intelligence and big data in identifying potential targets for military strikes, with an internal Internet linking all branches of the army to exchange information, and the plan was adopted to focus on ground forces (infantry, tanks, and artillery).

It also focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of the army at the speed of what was referred to as the “lethality” process, not only in the sense of annihilating the enemy militarily, but also targeting civilians in any upcoming battle. Military experts believe that the plan aims to systematically annihilate the opponent, and win by knockout in the first round.

Within the framework of the Tnovah plan, the Israeli army continues its preparations for a military operation, as the priorities of the military plans have been changed from focusing on the Iranian position in Syria and exposing Hezbollah and Hamas tunnels to preparing for a military confrontation in the Gaza Strip.

According to the statements of Israeli officials, the battle with the Gaza Strip has become imminent, but it was linked to Israeli internal variables in terms of the date of the next elections and the formation of the government, and the statements of the security system in the Israeli army indicate the development of an offensive plan to damage centers of gravity and sensitive property, and to disrupt the enemy’s firepower in the next war. In this context, the Goal Bank in the Gaza Strip has been doubled in recent months.

The “Tnuva” plan indicates the shape of the next battle. If a large-scale confrontation breaks out, Israel will use military force and an unprecedented intensity of fire, to cause great material destruction to the enemy’s military capabilities and infrastructure, which will take many years to restore, to create deterrence and postpone the date of the next war for years. Activating the ground war in an unprecedented way, which includes the introduction of large military forces in dense numbers into the Gaza Strip in the early stages of the confrontation, by integrating into the work of the various land, sea, air, intelligence and reserve forces, but without completely occupying the Strip.

Any upcoming military confrontation will include investing significant combat capabilities with the aim of harming the military organizational chain of command. In return, Hamas will use its missile capabilities, Kornet missiles, explosive devices, drones loaded with explosives, and cyber warfare with the help of Iran to launch attacks on infrastructure, and attempt to disrupt the Israeli missile defense system, with attempts to conduct naval attacks to harm gas platforms.

Da'iyah Doctrine

The Lebanon suburb Dahiya (also pronounced Dahieh), located in southern Beirut, was at the centre of Israel's military operations in 2006. Israel argued that it was a stronghold of Hezbollah. The Israeli military flattened the whole neighbourhood of Dahiya as a punishment to make the population stop supporting Hezbollah. The doctrine justifies asymmetric warfare, destruction of civilian infrastructure, collective punishment and the use of disproportionate force. "What happened in Dahiya, and operationalised as the Dahiya doctrine, is a complete disregard of international law… it violates two key provisions, proportionality and distinction," Rashid Khalidi, Professor of History at Columbia University, tells TRT World. The then-Israeli military commander, Gadi Eizenkot, had said that all the villages of the Dahiya neighbourhood were military bases from Israel's perspective. That has been Israel's policy to a certain extent in Gaza as well, Professor Khalidi says. Experts have highlighted the similarities between Israeli strikes in Dahiya and the ongoing war in Gaza, which claims to target Hamas but makes no distinction between combatants and civilians. The Da'iyah Doctrine developed after the end of the Second Lebanon War, which was seen, among other things, as a failure of the IDF in exploiting its clear military advantage against the array of Hezbollah fighters. In this context, the use made of firepower and rapid maneuvers of infantry and armored forces along with "hunt and destroy" tactics " of individual launchers, was seen as ineffective in preventing missile and rocket fire on population concentrations in the Israeli rear and harming IDF soldiers.

The doctrine was formulated as a response to the development of a new model of asymmetric combat on the part of the terrorist organizations, led by Hezbollah. In this context, the massive bombings of the IDF forces on the Da'aheh neighborhood in southern Beirut during the Second Lebanon War seemed to be a more relevant model for dealing with them.[2]This attack on Hezbollah's "nerve center" was a key element in the IDF's attempt to create a balance of deterrence against Hezbollah.

During an interview conducted with him by " Yediot Ahronoth " journalists Alex Fishman and Ariela Ringel-Hoffman on October 4, 2008 , Northern Command Major General Gadi Eisenkot presented the principles of the doctrine, according to which: "Each of the Shiite villages (in Lebanon) is a military site. Dozens of rockets are stored in basements and attics The roof. Dozens of local activists and outside fighters are prepared for a defensive battle and fire missiles at Israel. We know that Hezbollah will fire much more widely than in the last war , and we will respond accordingly. We will use disproportionate force on it."

According to the doctrine, the targets against which the IDF will use disproportionate force are diverse and can range from the villages where missile and rocket launchers operate, between the political, social or religious centers of the terrorist organization, and the civilian infrastructure of the political entity from which the terrorist organization operates. In cases of military maneuvers, the doctrine holds, massive firepower must be used, mainly from the air. In addition, in cases of hunting for launch points of missiles and rockets, one must focus on massive fire towards the area from which the launch was made.

In the context of the intensity of the use of fire required to defeat and subdue the enemy, the doctrine holds that in order to create an effective deterrent, economic and physical destruction of infrastructure must be caused and this in light of the assumption that this may create a buffer between the local population and the organizations of the terrorist organization.

According to the doctrine, the Israeli Air Force will use its full force from the first moment of combat. The working assumption was that Hezbollah's response will not be phased and it will also use its full firepower in an effort to inflict maximum damage on the Israeli rear, especially in the center of the country. For this reason, the IDF will strive to shorten the duration of the fighting as much as possible. Even though the reserve forces will be mobilized immediately at the start of the war, the IDF will strive to end the fighting, without being dragged into an extensive ground operation, the realization of which will require many weeks.

In the conceptual document " IDF Strategy " signed by the Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot, which was distributed in the IDF in August 2015, this doctrine was not specifically mentioned, but it was written there, among other things, that "in the event of fighting in Lebanon, tens of thousands of targets and objectives will be attacked."

On February 10, 2008, Gabi Siboni published an article in English on the " National Security Research Institute " website in which he expands on the theoretical basis on which the doctrine was built. In his opinion, the IDF should focus on a disproportionate strike as a response to the enemy's attack, when the effort to damage its launch capabilities was secondary. In this context, Siboni points out that as soon as the conflict breaks out, the IDF will be required to act quickly and with a force disproportionate to the threat and the enemy's actions, in order to damage and punish the scope which will require long and expensive rehabilitation processes. According to him, this damage must be realized in as short a time as possible, while preferring damage to assets over the pursuit of any launcher, since such a response will preserve a memory for many years among the decision makers in Lebanon, which will deepen the deterrence.

In November 2008 , Giora Island published an opinion piece on the " Institute for National Security Studies " website, which also deals with the principles of the doctrine. According to Eiland, Israel failed in the Second Lebanon War (and may also fail in the third) because it fought against the wrong enemy, which was Hezbollah, instead of in Lebanon. In this regard, Eiland claims that it was not possible to defeat a guerrilla organization operating under the auspices of a state immune to reaction. Hizbullah, according to Eiland, was operating under optimal conditions for him, since in Lebanon there was a legitimate government, supported by the West, but in practice completely subordinate to Hizbullah's will. In his article, Eiland proposed a preliminary move according to which Israel would send an unequivocal message to the Lebanese government threatening that in the next war the Lebanese army would be eliminated , the civilian infrastructure would be destroyed and the Lebanese population would suffer in the event of an attack initiated by Hezbollah.

At the heart of Israel'soperatins in Gaza and in the number of civilian deaths lies a military philosophy known as the Dahiya doctrine that junks every laid down norm of warfare, experts and analysts say. "At the core of the Israeli Dahiya doctrine is the idea of causing damage rather than accuracy (in target selection)," says Dr Ahron Bregman, who served in the Israeli army for six years and is now a lecturer at King's College. He was also a former parliamentary assistant to the Knesset. "That's why at least 40 percent of the bombs Israeli planes dropped on Gaza are dumb bombs," he tells TRT World, referring to free-falling explosive devices which do not have any guidance system and hence are highly inaccurate. This also explains the staggering number of civilian deaths in Gaza – a result of Israel not having any actual intent to protect civilians, including the prevention of aid delivery to the injured. Dr David Murphy, lecturer of military history at Maynooth University, likens Israel's war to bombing campaigns during World War II, aimed at destroying cities to make civilian populations rise and turn against their governments. "However, what we have seen in Gaza is the end point of this paradigm of 'the war in cities', since there are no survival options left for civilians… even to take shelter in any UN, Red Crescent centres, or hospitals," he tells TRT World. "In the ongoing war, the Israelis define Hamas as the enemy though their actual brutal actions seem to suggest that they regard the Palestinian people as the enemy," Ahron adds. Dropping dumb bombs on the city also shows the real intent to cause damage, he points out. According to a recent media report, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence says nearly half of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions used to attack Gaza have been unguided 'dumb bombs'. "Why drop an expensive bomb if all you want to do is cause damage and flatten whole neighbourhoods, which could be achieved by a relatively cheap stupid bomb?" Bregman says. "If you ask the Israelis why it is necessary to flatten whole neighbourhoods, they will tell you that it is necessary in order to protect their troops from snipers and so on. But the truth is that they do it in order to, well, cause damage." Even though Israel issued evacuation orders, its airstrikes targeted the so-called 'safe routes' used by civilian convoys. "Palestinians in Gaza are trapped there, but Israel is still continuing to attack the city where the civilians are," Dr Murphy says. In urban warfare, which is a very difficult place to minimise civilian casualties, if you keep attacking, it means you are deliberately targeting the civilians, Dr Murphy adds. Civilians in combat zones also serve the Israeli strategy because the concept behind this is that if they punish the civilian population enough, they are expected to turn against Hamas, he explains. Some targets have been attacked simply because they are considered high-value targets without any necessary connection to the war, he explains, citing the examples of the Islamic University of Gaza, the parliament building, the court building, the library, and hospitals.

Eisenkot Doctrine

Chief of General Staff Gadi Eisenkot, since assuming his position on February 16, 2015, sought to paint an image of himself before the Israeli public. He has emerged as an exceptional leader who wants to make historic changes in the organization of the army, its performance, and its combat doctrine, commensurate with the security threats in the Middle East region and the world. After the July 2006 war and the report of the Winograd Committee, organizational changes took place, most notably the establishment of the Home Front Command, which was the focus of attention through internal maneuvers that were called a “turning point.” Eisenkot was trying to go beyond the established Israeli tradition, so he prepared a new strategy to confront the dangers facing Israel in light of the new threats, and published it in the media. This was the first time that Israeli public opinion has become aware of the strategy of the Israeli armed forces and may discuss it in political and party circles.

The policy was first mentioned by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think-tank with close ties to the Israeli political and military establishment. INSS published it in a policy paper "Disproportionate Force: Israel's Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War." The policy stresses that in a conflict with Hamas, the Israeli army should use "force that is disproportionate to the enemy's actions and the threat it poses." Israeli actions in Gaza strongly indicated that the policy, which would fly in the face of international law, was being pursued with gusto by Israeli forces. That's not an accident but a feature of Israel's strategy, which aims to instil fear in civilians who stand up to the Zionist state.

It was stated in the strategy that the Chief of Staff was the highest military commander and commands the armed forces and was responsible for managing military operations. Thus, it was a wink from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, who participated with the Chief of Staff in leading the operations in the July 2006 war and the three subsequent Gaza wars in the years 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014, and a clear message that they have no right to interfere in the military decisions that the Chief of Staff will take in the next war.

The strategy also stated that countries that have borders with Israel no longer pose a danger, and that the danger comes from “Hezbollah” and “Hamas.” The strategy called for carrying out a “Campaign Between Wars” (CBW), that is, carrying out all the work of monitoring and following up on the activities of the “enemy” (Hezbollah) and Hamas, and monitoring nearby countries, i.e. Iran. This campaign was not new, but has been continuing since the establishment of Israel. The Mossad has pursued Palestinian resistance leaders around the world and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and Syria, in addition to intercepting resistance weapons ships and monitoring them with human and technical espionage (eavesdropping and satellites).

The United Nations commissioned a fact-finding mission known as the Goldstone Report, which concluded that the Israeli strategy was "designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population." The international law professor Richard Falk has described Israel's Dahiya Doctrine "not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism."

The strategy considered air forces to be indecisive to wars, based on the experience of the July 2006 war and the war of the international coalition against ISIS, led by the United States since September 2014, which did not achieve decisive results. On the contrary, air strikes did not prevent ISIS from Advance to Ramadi in Iraq and to Palmyra and Al-Qaryatayn in Syria. On the other hand, the strategy states that it has identified tens of thousands of targets in Lebanon and thousands of targets in Gaza, and this requires tens of thousands of air sorties, that is, the extensive use of aviation, which meant that the use of ground forces was inevitable and obligatory in any war without diminishing the role of the air force. In other words, the restriction of operations to the air forces ended with the July War.

Eizenkot warns of ground action immediately after any future confrontation with “Hamas” and “Hezbollah.” The strategy says that Israel will not begin to attack, but if it was attacked, it will not be satisfied with defense, but rather will launch an attack immediately instead of defensive operations. This idea seems to be the new decisive element in this strategy. To be able to launch an immediate attack in response to any attack, Israeli ground forces must remain at the highest level of readiness. This applies to “Hamas” in Gaza, which the new strategy warns of storming immediately after any attack on the nearby Israeli settlements and sites. As for the Lebanon front, the matter was complicated, as international forces are deployed on the Lebanese side of the border, and they limit the freedom of movement of forces.

The strategy also indicates that the army will supervise the evacuation of civilians from the conflict areas in the south and north, and that the unorganized and confusing displacement that occurred. What happened in the Lebanon war and the Gaza wars will not be repeated. The strategy does not talk about the expansion of the conflict and Iran’s participation in the war. It mentions the Golan Front without taking into account the Syrian army, which was engaged in internal wars, and it does not mention whether there was a possibility for this army to participate in the field of air or naval defense.

Despite the Israeli qualitative superiority over the Arab armies and the imbalance in the air, sea, land and electronics in favor of Israel, the threat of asymmetric warfare posed by Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the factions in Gaza continues, and with it the obsession with the experiences of the Syrian and Iraqi wars.

Over the past decade, the IDF has made significant changes to its structure and combat priorities, and has undergone fundamental changes aimed at improving the effectiveness of its units in expected future conflicts against Hamas and Hezbollah. The air and naval forces expanded their conventional and unconventional warfare capabilities, Israel allocated enormous resources to strengthening its defense infrastructure, intelligence units were given high priority, and cyber units were formed and deployed.

The structural and doctrinal changes introduced by the IDF were generally a response to the gradual transformation of Hamas and Hezbollah from local resistance movements into powerful armed organizations. During the past twenty-five years, the Hamas movement has transformed from a mass social-religious movement into a political regime with a military wing that possesses a number of fighters estimated at more than 30,000 armed men, and its arsenal includes nearly 20,000 missiles capable of hitting targets at a range of up to 200 kilometers.

As for Hezbollah, it has undergone greater organizational changes, and has evolved from a popular movement into what many experts consider to be the strongest non-governmental military force in the world, with the number of its forces estimated at 50-60 thousand fighters, and its ability to strike more than 100,000 missiles. Hezbollah's tactical capabilities have changed dramatically and it was now capable of carrying out offensive operations outside the borders of Lebanon and behind Israeli lines.

The combat experience, firepower and confidence of Hamas and Hezbollah have raised their standing in the eyes of the Israeli military leadership, which now considers them among the main military threats to the state's security, which was why these changes occurred.

These changes are considered a natural matter in light of the absence of the traditional military threat from the Arab armies, as the 1973 war was considered the last war that the Israeli army fought against regular military forces, before most of the encirclement countries turned to peace or truce. In such cases, and with the military changes that have taken place since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the shift towards asymmetric warfare (irregular warfare), it becomes understandable that Israel would tend toward pivotal changes in the structure of its army in response to these new dangers. Israel's wars over the past 40 years were mostly against armed organizations, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Gideon Plan

In the summer of 2015, the Israeli army, led by then Chief of General Staff Benny Ganz, launched the Gideon Plan. The essence of the plan was to reduce, modernize and reform the Israeli armed forces, in order to confront unconventional forces. The army’s Gideon Plan, a five-year program meant to make the army both leaner and more effective. The overall plan will see a reduction in personnel across the board, specifically among career army soldiers. Under the plan, by January 2017 only 40,000 career soldiers will remain in the IDF, a military official said in November 2015.

But in 2019 the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Aviv Kochavi, developed a multi-year military action plan for the next five years, which will replace the previous “Gideon” plan. While the Gideon Plan, drawn up by former Israeli Army Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot in 2015, focused on reducing the number of army forces and reducing 11% of senior officers, by 2016 2 generals, 24 colonels, and 80 lieutenant colonels were removed. The plan focused on increasing The ability of the naval and air forces, with declining interest in ground forces, and abandoning sending ground forces in any upcoming battle.

Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said in 2015 the Gideon PLan would completely change the shape of the army by 2020. One of the plan's provisions was based on the principle of reducing the number of soldiers used in ground combat by strengthening the multi-armed attack strategy with military aviation and naval forces, in addition to the armored forces and artillery.

The Israeli army began to reduce combat and non-combat units in active and reserve military formations. An order was also issued to reduce the number of military rank positions by 10%, and to reduce the number of non-commissioned officers from 45 to 40 thousand soldiers. At the same time, there was a decrease in the mobilized reserves, and the length of service of conscripts was also reduced by 4 months, and reserve forces were reduced by 30%, which meant the demobilization of 100,000 people out of 300,000 active reserve soldiers before the war.

This strategy requires the presence of a larger number of officers on the ground with each combat unit, to enable rapid decision-making and requesting the summoning and intervention of the Air Force and the Navy, to provide support and provide cover more quickly. Therefore, some believe that it may be one of the reasons contributing to the high death toll of officers in Gaza in 2023-2024.

In an organizational restructuring, the Israel Defense Forces merged its Ground Forces with the Technological and Logistics Directorate this month, in a move that was expected to save the army NIS 1 billion ($265 million) over the next five years, the head of the project, Brig. Gen. Ziv Avtalyon, told The Times of Israel 02 October 2016. That money will come, in part, from cutting the positions of some 1,000 positions, including “commissioned and non-commissioned officers — at every rank and every level — along with some civilian employees,” Avtalyon said.

During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the IDF noted serious issues in both the training of soldiers and the army’s supply lines. The former meant the soldiers were poorly prepared to fight an enemy like Hezbollah, while the latter meant troops lacked essential materiel, like food.

According to the new strategy, the brigades were considered independent combat groups, not structural units from which the divisions were composed, and the specializations of each brigade included the ability to plan and implement ground operations without the support of the division leadership.

The new brigade combat team consists of 6 battalions, including infantry, armored, artillery, and engineer units. According to the new strategy, each battalion can communicate directly individually with the air and naval forces for infiltration or fire support, without resorting to the known military hierarchy of the regiment’s leadership. Up the brigade and through the division, and to ensure better control and coordination between the battalions, each new brigade obtained its own headquarters.

These profound changes in the structure of the army, by transforming forces into small groups fighting on the ground, required the presence of many officers to lead combat formations not linked to the division, and most of these officers are field officers who lead battles directly from the ground and not from their distant military bases.

In 2019, the Israeli army developed the Gideon Strategy to make the combat units more impulsive and capable of ground combat, in a plan drawn up by Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, and called the Tnuva Plan. In light of these changes, and with the intensification of the battle in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and the Palestinian resistance factions, many officers were killed, due to their wide deployment on the contact lines during the Iron Swaords fighting during ground operations in the Strip, which explains the fall of such a large number of them.

The continued loss of military units of their leaders during battles and direct clashes gives the Palestinian fighters a great advantage, because the enemy forces will be disturbed and exposed to randomness during direct combat, especially since the Palestinian resistance adopts tactics similar to short, lightning battles, which require a rapid attack using a high intensity of fire and withdrawal. To prevent aviation from interfering. This type of battle destroys the psychology of the fighter, as Israeli soldiers find themselves in the midst of deadly battles, and without a leader.

There were two distinct organizations of Boy Scouts by the time of the Great War. One was known as the "Baden-Powell Boy Scouts," which was of a military nature. The other was "The World Scouts," organized by Sir Francis Vane, of England, the distinguished advocate of peace. The "World Scouts" was started to counteract the military tendency of the Baden-Powell movement. It is but little known in America, but the Baden-Powell organization is being persistently pushed in every State of the Union. There is a well matured organization which is promoting it through the Y. M. C. A., the churches, the Sunday schools and by adroit systematic advertising in the newspapers.

There was much criticism of the Baden-Powell Boy Scouts, and Mr. West, the American secretary, and other promoters, have denied that it is of a military nature, but the facts were against them. The inventor and the present commander-in-chief of the Boy Scouts was Major-General Sir Robert Stevenson-Smyth Baden-Powell, "hero of the great battle fought at Mafeking," in the Transvaal, with the Boers, and he ranks with Lord Kitchener and Lord Roberts of England as a fighter. He belongs to the English nobility and is an intimate friend of the Czar of Russia. He was a professional man-killer, and he won great distinction in killing the peaceful Boers because England wanted the rich diamond mines of the Transvaal.

He went to Russia and induced the Czar to issue a proclamation requiring 3,500,000 peasant boys between the ages of 12 and 15 to be organized into Boy Scouts, and receive military training by regular army officers. The Associated Press dispatches July 1911, in giving an account of the review of the Boy Scouts by the Czar, said the authorities "hoped that the early awakening of enthusiasm for the army will operate against the spread of seditious Socialism among the youth of Russia." In Russia the Boy Scouts are under regular army officers and are designated as the "Juvenile Army."

The Boy Scout movement, as proposed by Lord Baden-Powell, met the approval of the Emperor of Germany, who, it has been stated, is promoting it in that country "to strengthen the army." The movement is receiving the support of other rulers and plutocrats of Europe. An item appeared in some of the papers of the United States: "Lieutenant Simons, who is visiting this country, in command of the Australian boys, gives an account of the Boy Scout movement as they have it in Australia. He states that already 100,000 boys are registered, and the purpose is to continue the work until Australia has 600,000 well-trained soldiers. Every boy of thirteen is registered. For two years he will be drilled (without a gun). At 15 years old the rifle will be put in his hands, and he will be drilled until he is 18."

That it does create in the lads a yearning to become soldiers is certain. No one in Europe thought of claiming that the Baden-Powell Boy Scouts are not being trained for war.

Scouting is not so much an organization as a movement. The scout movement is neither military nor antimilitary. It has been criticized by pacifists because the boys wore uniforms and perhaps did some drilling. On the other hand it has failed of support by some who wanted to see to the uniforms added rifles, and the boys made young soldiers. Baden-Powellshaped the movement as non-military. Soldiering is a man's game, and the young boy needs an untrammelled boyhood, stimulated by the manysided activities of scouting.

For all that, the scout movement may fairly be counted a military asset of great value. First of all, boy scouts learn to take care of themselves in the open, to march long distances, to become, in short, physically fit,-and this is a very important military consideration, especially when it is recalled that upwards of 50% of those drafted in the last war were far from fit. Further, the scout training includes some subjects directly useful in a military sense, such as mapping, first-aid, signalling; and in general greatly increases mental alertness and initiative. Officers in the Great War found that soldiers previously trained as scouts knew better how to take advantage of cover, and were superior in a dozen ways to those without such training. Finally, the scouts, if properly handled, learn obedience and selfcontrol; their "gang spirit" is directed into disciplined team-work; and through the "daily good turn" and the helpful attitude toward the other fellow, they learn how to render a patriotic devotion. to a cause outside of, and bigger than, themselves.

It is a program for moulding boy-material into citizens. The Headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America in New York points the way-it approves the appointment of all scout officials, publishes handbooks, magazines and other literature, supplies uniforms, and the like. Each local council coordinates the work in its own vicinity, conducts rallies and competitions, makes inspections, provides for central camps. But the real unit in scouting is the troop, and the real leader the scout-master. Some score or more of eager boys (not less than twelve years of age), a man-comrade who hasn't altogether forgotten how to be a boy himself and the scout program does the rest.

Pretending to be an old butterfly collector, Baden-Powell inspected Austrian fortifications in the Balkans. He skillfully disguised his sketches as images of butterflies. He visited Turkey, Italy and other countries, including Russia. This was in 1886. Maneuvers took place in Krasnoye Selo, during which new searchlights and a new military balloon were to be tested. Robert Baden-Powell and his brother managed to enter the restricted area without much difficulty. William Hilcourt's biography of Baden-Powell says: "They greeted everyone who was greeted by everyone, and passed by the sentries, who asked them nothing." When the guards left for lunch, the brothers were able to get a good look at the balloon gondola, and then remained in the restricted area until the evening to observe the tests of the searchlights. Both the searchlights and the balloon did not seem as interesting to them as they expected.

In 1887, Baden-Powell was sent to South Africa, where blacks offered desperate resistance to the British colonialists. He took part in suppressing the uprising of the Zulu, Ashanti and Matabela. In his memoirs, Baden-Powell later wrote that because of his sudden attacks, the blacks nicknamed him “The Wolf that Never Sleeps.” In 1899, Baden-Powell was promoted to colonel and appointed commandant of the Mafking fortress, an important strategic and administrative point and railway junction. Mafking was located in the Cape Colony, near the border of Bechuanaland, a British protectorate.

The Boer War began on October 12, 1899; Boers from the Transvaal surrounded Mafking. The siege lasted seven months (217 days), until 17 May 1900, when Field Marshal Lord Roberts, advancing on the Transvaal capital Pretoria, sent a special detachment to liberate Mafking. The garrison consisted of 1,250 men, but Baden-Powell mobilized all men capable of bearing arms. Among them were boys 12-14 years old. Of the most efficient, a detachment of scouts was formed, who were tasked not only with observing enemy positions, but also with carrying letters through the ring of Boers besieging the fortress. Every man - every boy - counted. For the boys of Mafeking had been collected, drilled and uniformed, and now acted as messengers, orderlies, and sentinels. They carried on these duties throughout the siege, and at the end of the war received their medals like grown-up soldiers.

In England after the Boer war, there were thousands of under-developed, flabby youths, poor material indeed for citizens. Baden-Powell, now a general, remembered Mafeking.

Baden-Powell decided to test his theories in practice. To do this, he gathered a group of 22 boys and spent 8 days with them in the summer of 1907 in a tent camp on Brownsea Island, off the south coast of England (Dorset). He collected these English boys in Surrey, talked to them, taught them, and uniformed them. Everyone liked the camp, and at the beginning of 1908, the book “Scouting for Boys” was published in six separate notebooks. The need for out-of-school education for teenagers has been felt for a long time, and many attempts have been made to create children's organizations in different countries, but what Baden-Powell proposed turned out to be the most suitable.

In the spring of 1908, the whole of England was covered with a network of spontaneously arising detachments. Then the movement spread to the colonies. A year later, King Edward VII received the first parade of fourteen thousand scouts from England. In 1909, the first Girl Scout groups appeared. The Scout Association of Great Britain received its legal status by a king's charter on January 4, 1912.

http://www.scouts.ru/library/13043 At the end of December 1910, General Baden-Powell arrived in St. Petersburg. O. I. Pantyukhov and V. G. Yanchevetsky, the founder of the legion of “young intelligence officers” in St. Petersburg, learned about this from the newspapers and hastened to meet the author of the book “Young Intelligence Officer”. Baden-Powell invited his new acquaintances to visit England and get acquainted with the organization of scouting work on the spot, and he himself soon left for an audience with Emperor Nicholas II, and then to Moscow, where a banquet was held in his honor by local “young scouts”. Baden-Powell did not have time to get acquainted with intelligence work in St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo.

That Baden-Powell was a talented spy is evidenced by a book he wrote immediately after returning from South Africa in 1901. It’s called “To Help Scouts.” It gave general advice on methods of observation and deduction to improve the quality of training of soldiers. In addition to purely military advice, other requirements for a scout formulated by the BP are noteworthy here: he must be strong, healthy, active, a real scout has good eyesight and hearing, he is a good horseman and swimmer, he can explore and read those around him. All these requirements were later presented to young scouts.

Hannibal Protocol

The Hannibal Protocol (also called the Hannibal Directive), a procedure used by the Israeli army to prevent the capture of its soldiers, even if it means killing them, so this protocol allows the bombing of captured soldiers' positions. It was drafted by three high-ranking officers, and it remained a secret protocol until its adoption in 2006. The "Hannibal" Protocol sparked widespread controversy in Israel, as its opponents describe it as a "brutal option" that risks the lives of prisoners who could be saved.

The term “Hannibal Protocol” reappeared in Operation “ Al-Aqsa Flood ,” which was launched by the Palestinian resistance at dawn on October 7, 2023, during which it stormed the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip, took control of several military sites and bases for the occupation army, and captured about 250 Israelis, including dozens. Soldiers and officers, to which the occupation responded with violent bombing of Gaza, resulting in thousands of martyrs and wounded.

Opinions differ on whether this military protocol was called “Hannibal,” and on who specifically coined the term. There are those who believe that the term is applied to the way in which the historical leader of Carthage, Hannibal Barca, ended his life, when he chose to poison himself rather than fall prisoner into the hands of the Romans. While others believe that the name of the system - which remained a military secret until 2006 - was chosen randomly by a computer belonging to the occupation army about 3 decades ago, and was developed by 3 senior army officers.

The Israeli army is considered the only one in the world that uses this procedure, despite the repeated internal criticism it faces, which believes that it does not provide protection for its forces in the field.

Its development and formulation dates back to the conclusion of the prisoner deal called “Galilee” between Israel and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine movement led by its Secretary-General Ahmed Jibril in 1985, during which he exchanged 3 Israeli soldiers for 1,150 Palestinian prisoners. After that, the “Hannibal Directive” system was officially introduced in 1986, 5 months after the Lebanese Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers (Youssef Fink and Rafael Al-Sheikh), and the ensuing prisoner exchange operations were described as “unbalanced”, and the soldiers were thus directed Israelis must obstruct the kidnapping of their colleagues at all costs.

The protocol was drafted - at the time - by Yossi Peled, head of the IDF's Northern Command, in cooperation with a committee consisting of retired General Uri Or, former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, commander of the IDF's Northern Command, Amram Levin, and former National Security Advisor General Colonel Yaakov Amidror. For more than a decade, military censors prevented journalists from reporting on this protocol, or even discussing its subject, and the full text of the directive was never published, claiming that doing so might weaken the morale of the Israeli people. In 2003, an Israeli doctor who heard about the directive while serving as a reservist in Lebanon began calling for its repeal, which led to it being declassified.

It is believed that there are two different versions of the Hannibal Directive, one a secret written version available only at the highest levels of the Israeli army, and the other an oral directive to division commanders and lower levels. From the IDF's point of view, the concept of "better a dead soldier than a captured soldier" was the core of the Hannibal Protocol doctrine. The directive specified the steps the army should take in the event of a soldier being kidnapped, and its stated goal was to prevent soldiers from falling into enemy hands, even If necessary, kill them.

Military officials consider that the kidnapping of soldiers is a strategic matter, not a tactical matter, and carries a very high price that Israel must pay in order to release them. In essence, the protocol relies on a scorched earth policy, and stipulates the opening of indiscriminate fire if a soldier is captured, with the aim of killing both the captors and the prisoner together. The protocol places full responsibility for expediting this on the local commander, because in such cases the first minutes are decisive. In 2011, a Golani commander was recorded telling his unit, “No soldier in the 51st Battalion will be kidnapped, at any cost or under any circumstances. Even if it means he has to detonate his grenade with those who try to arrest him, even if it means he has to detonate his grenade with those who try to capture him.” "That meant his unit would have to fire on the getaway car."

Although the details of the "Hannibal" Protocol were secret for years, it sparked intense disagreements, until it was amended after the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to Gaza in 2006, and the language of the controversial document was softened to clarify that it did not call for the deliberate killing of captured soldiers. The Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Benny Gantz, thus established a principle known as the principle of double effect, which stipulates that a bad outcome (killing a captured soldier) is morally permissible only as a side effect of promoting a good action (stopping his captors).

In June 2016, the former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Gadi Eisenkot, announced the cancellation of the “Hannibal Protocol”, based on the recommendation of Yosef Shapira, the State Attorney General and retired judge, which came within the framework of the chapter on international law in the draft report on the aggression against Gaza. In the summer of 2014. Eisenkot then ordered the writing of a new order that was being worked on in the Operations Department, regarding dealing with cases of soldiers being captured, but not much is known about the details of these amendments. It is believed - according to reports - that the wording of the old document, which is applicable anywhere, and its procedures are constantly being reviewed to prevent any misunderstanding, and 3 protocols have been developed in its place related to the location and circumstances of the kidnapping, and they have been given 3 different names:

1. The first, called the real test, concerns kidnapping in the West Bank during peacetime.
2. The second is called a tourniquet (bandage to stop bleeding) and is specific to kidnapping anywhere outside Israel's borders in peacetime.
3. As for the third, it is called the same guard, and it is concerned with kidnapping cases anywhere inside or outside Israel, but during a state of war, or in other emergency situations.

While there was no protocol directed at dealing with cases of kidnapping soldiers inside Israel in peacetime. It is believed that the tripartite protocol remained faithful to the policy of dealing with these cases. The old document, which contained secret texts, stated that “military personnel must thwart any kidnapping of soldiers, even if they have to harm or injure a fellow soldier.” The new amendment calls for care to "avoid injury to kidnapped soldiers."

Since it became official, the "Hannibal" Protocol has sparked much controversy and public criticism within the Israeli security community, and the central question has been about the ethics of the protocol and the various consequences of its directives. For years, the directive was open to different and ambiguous interpretations, and Israeli soldiers on the battlefield debated it vigorously, and at least one battalion commander, according to an investigation conducted by the Haaretz newspaper, refused to inform his soldiers of this protocol, under the pretext that it was “illegal.”

In practice, each military commander offered his own interpretation of the implementation of Hannibal's directive to his soldiers. News reports reported that the Golani battalion commander ordered his soldiers to blow themselves up with a hand grenade if they found themselves in danger of being kidnapped. As for the former commander of the Nahal Brigade, Colonel Moti Baruch, he ordered his soldiers to do everything in their power to prevent the kidnappings, including shooting at the kidnappers’ car while endangering the prisoner’s life.

This was considered illegal by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and urged Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to instruct the government and the army that such military actions are not permitted, whether due to the threat to the kidnapped soldier or the potential killing and harm of civilians. As for the organization’s chief legal advisor, Dan Yakir, he believed that implementing this protocol in a densely populated area violates the principle of discrimination in international humanitarian law, and constitutes “an illegal method of fighting that violates the laws of war,” and that granting permission to soldiers to inflict “harm on another soldier to prevent his kidnapping “It shakes the foundations of law and morality, and must be absolutely condemned.

Some battalion commanders refused to pass the directives to their forces, and other soldiers requested guidance on its implementation from clerics and rabbis, and some of them informed their commanders of their refusal to implement it on the battlefield.

Models of implementation of the "Hannibal" Protocol

1. March 2016: The “Hannibal” Protocol entered into force for half an hour, when two soldiers were forced to abandon their vehicle after being attacked during the storming of the Qalandiya refugee camp. The Israeli army said at the time that it used this procedure after realizing that one soldier was missing.
2. August 2014: Used when Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was believed to have been captured in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The indiscriminate Israeli military bombing led to the killing of between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, within 3 hours, and in the end, the army decided that the soldier was already dead before implementing the protocol.
3. July 2014: IDF forces activated the Hannibal Protocol and ordered massive gunfire when a soldier named Guy Levy was believed to be missing during the Battle of Shujaiya.
4. October 2000: The “Hannibal Protocol” was activated when Hezbollah captured 3 Israeli soldiers in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area, namely, Uday Abtan, Benjamin Abraham, and Omar Suwaid, and transported them across the ceasefire line to Lebanon, and an Israeli attack helicopter opened fire on them. 26 vehicles were traveling in the area, thinking that the kidnapped soldiers would be taken to one of them.
5. During the Gaza War (2008–2009): The order was issued when an Israeli soldier was shot by Hamas fighters while searching a house in the Gaza Strip. The house was later bombed to prevent the wounded soldiers from being captured alive.
6. June 2006: When Hamas captured Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza, it came too late and did not prevent his kidnapping. Ultimately, he was exchanged in 2011 for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, which is the highest number of prisoners ever exchanged for a single Israeli prisoner.
7. July 2006: The Hannibal Protocol was activated when Hezbollah fighters near the village of Aita al-Shaab on the Lebanese-Israeli border captured two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev), and three other soldiers were killed. In the end, the soldiers' bodies were returned in 2008 in exchange for the release of Lebanese prisoner Nassim Nasr.

Israel has implemented the “Hannibal” directive on numerous occasions since 1986, and one of the most devastating implementation was in Rafah in 2014. Of the 11 Israelis to whom the protocol was applied on 7 occasions, only one soldier survived.

1. March 2016: The “Hannibal” Protocol entered into force for half an hour, when two soldiers were forced to abandon their vehicle after being attacked during the storming of the Qalandiya refugee camp. The Israeli army said at the time that it used this procedure after realizing that one soldier was missing.
2. August 2014: Used when Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was believed to have been captured in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The indiscriminate Israeli military bombing led to the killing of between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, within 3 hours, and in the end, the army decided that the soldier was already dead before implementing the protocol.
3. July 2014: IDF forces activated the Hannibal Protocol and ordered massive gunfire when a soldier named Guy Levy was believed to be missing during the Battle of Shujaiya.
4. October 2000: The “Hannibal Protocol” was activated when Hezbollah captured 3 Israeli soldiers in the Shebaa Farms area occupied by “Israel”, namely Uday Abtan, Benjamin Abraham, and Omar Suwaid, and transported them across the ceasefire line to Lebanon, and an Israeli attack helicopter was launched. They opened fire on 26 vehicles traveling in the area, thinking that the kidnapped soldiers would be transferred to one of them.
5. During the Gaza War (2008–2009): The order was issued when an Israeli soldier was shot by Hamas fighters while searching a house in the Gaza Strip. The house was later bombed to prevent the wounded soldiers from being captured alive.
6. June 2006: When Hamas captured Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza, it came too late and did not prevent his kidnapping. Ultimately, he was exchanged in 2011 for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, which is the highest number of prisoners ever exchanged for a single Israeli prisoner.
7. July 2006: The “Hannibal Protocol” was activated when Hezbollah fighters near the village of Aita al-Shaab on the Lebanese-Israeli border captured two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev), and three other soldiers were killed. In the end, the soldiers' bodies were returned in 2008 in exchange for the release of Lebanese prisoner Nassim Nasr.

The Israeli army ordered the Hannibal Directive – a controversial Israeli military policy aimed at preventing the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces at any cost – on October 7 last year, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed. In a report on 07 July 2024, the newspaper, based on testimonies of Israeli soldiers and senior army officers, said that during Hamas’s unprecedented attack last October, the Israeli army started making decisions with limited and unverified information, and issued an order that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza”. The report said the Hannibal protocol “was employed at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas” and “this did not prevent the kidnapping of seven of them [soldiers] or the killing of 15 other spotters, as well as 38 other soldiers”.

401st "Iron Tracks" Brigade

401-bde.gif">Butts of Steel 401" is one of the 3 brigades that make up the Israeli Armored Forces. An Israeli armored brigade was established in 1967, with the aim of strengthening the Israeli defense lines at the Suez Canal during the Six-Day War . Since its establishment, it has played a central and decisive role in all of Israel’s wars, on all fronts: Sinai , Lebanon, the Golan Heights , the West Bank , and the Gaza Strip . He participated in the aggression launched by Israel against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, and carried out mass killings and destruction of buildings and infrastructure, and attacked hospitals , crossings , international relief offices, and camps for the displaced. During the battles, he suffered losses among his soldiers, amounting to about 25 dead and more than 650 injured.

The 401st Brigade, or “Butts of Steel,” was established in 1967, during the Six-Day War, to strengthen Israeli defensive lines on the Suez Canal. In its beginnings, it served as a reserve brigade specialized in operating American M60 Patton tanks. "Butts of Steel" is considered one of the 3 brigades that make up the Israeli Armored Forces. It is affiliated with the 162nd Armored Division, and represents its strongest priority. It falls under the management of the Southern Command. It is one of the most prominent military divisions that the occupation army relies on in field battles, due to its possession of armor and its strength and ability to move. Its headquarters is located at the Yishai base near the Holy City, while the units that make up the brigade are stationed throughout Israel, performing vital tasks in various sectors.

Before joining this brigade, the recruits undergo an 8-month training course, at the end of which they receive the Armored Corps badge. As for the outstanding ones, they are sent to the Shizfun military base in the Negev to undergo supplementary training for an additional period of 4 months. In its military activity, the brigade relies on the operation of Merkava Mark 4 tanks , which are one of the most advanced tanks in the world, and the most important in the Israeli army. They combine superior firepower, accuracy, mobility, armor, and advanced technology. They are also equipped with the “Trophy” active anti-missile protection system.

The 401st Brigade is considered one of the most important military brigades that participate in the Israeli army’s ground invasions. It includes a group of units: armored battalions, infantry divisions, and companies. The most prominent of these units are:

• 9th Isht Armored Battalion
• 46th Shilah Armored Battalion
• 52nd Happo Kim Armored Battalion
• 601st Assaf Armored Engineers Battalion
• Reconnaissance 401
• Eyal Signal Company 298

Since its establishment, the 401st Brigade has had a central and prominent role in all the wars that Israel has fought. It has participated on all fronts: in Sinai, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Its first military activities were in the June 1967 war, and it fought under the wing of the 162nd Battalion, which inflicted losses. She was a major figure in the Egyptian army, and was one of the reasons for its defeat.

The brigade participated in the battles that took place in Sinai during the War of Attrition, and was responsible for maintaining the defensive line of the Suez Canal, which is 160 kilometers long. It remained in Sinai until the October War of 1973 , when it was exposed, as part of the Israeli military divisions in Sinai, to an unexpected attack by The Egyptian army accepted, which led to its defeat before it.

The division also fought on the northern front, and participated in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which Israel called Operation “Peace for Galilee,” as it invaded southern Lebanon, until it reached Beirut and besieged it for two months, forcing thousands of members of the Palestine Liberation Organization to leave Lebanon. It was followed by Bloody massacres committed by the occupation in Palestinian camps.

The brigade's teams were then stationed in what Israel called the "security belt" in Lebanon. It remained in the border area until the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. At that time, the brigade’s brigades also moved between the Golan Heights and many places in the occupied Palestinian territories, and carried out routine security operations in the Jordan Valley , near the Gaza Strip, Hebron , and areas inside the West Bank.

The 401st Brigade was active in the Israeli operation against the Palestinians during the Second Intifada , between the years 2000 and 2005, and raided cities and towns with Merkava Mark 4 tanks. After the intifada stopped, it moved again to the northern front, where it participated in the second war on Lebanon in 2006, and fought a violent battle with Hezbollah. In the Bint Jbeil area. In that battle, he received a painful blow from the resistance.

This brigade later transferred to the Gaza Strip, where it was stationed in the region under the command of Colonel Yigal Slovic, and was provided with an additional number of tanks, during the Israeli aggression on Gaza at the end of 2008, which the occupation called Operation “Cast Lead.”

The brigade headed the incursion of the occupation forces through the central Gaza Strip, reaching the coast of the Mediterranean Sea , which led to the isolation of the northern part of the strip from its southern part. The occupation carried out sabotage and destruction operations under the pretext of eliminating the infrastructure of the resistance. In that attack, 33 of the brigade’s soldiers were wounded. While no deaths were reported. During Operation Protective Edge - which the occupation launched against Gaza in 2014 - the 401st Brigade operated in a wide area of ??the Strip, and was stationed between Gaza City and the Nuseirat camp . The Armored Engineers Battalion participated among the military units and used its heavy Puma combat vehicles, which were exposed. Anti-tank missile attack.

The 401st Brigade participated in the Israeli operation in Gaza following the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle launched by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023 against the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip . The brigade - under the leadership of Colonel Benjamin Aharon - was strongly present in the ground operations of the Israeli army throughout the Strip, beginning in Beit Lahia , then Al-Daraj and Al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City. On November 10, 2023, it raided the Badr site, west of Gaza, and about 150 Palestinians were killed in the attack. The occupation authorities claimed that they were “terrorists.” The 401st Brigade destroyed the infrastructure and buildings, under the pretext that they were command centers belonging to the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) and weapons production sites. , missile launch pads, and underground tunnel networks. The same month, this brigade participated in the attack launched by the Israeli army on Al-Rantisi Hospital, based on the occupation’s allegations that there were tunnels under its buildings. It also later participated in the attack on Al-Shifa Medical Complex .

In February 2024, the 401st Brigade was part of a raid targeting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees ( UNRWA ), the largest provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza. The Israeli army announced - in early March 2024 - that it had ended a two-week raid in the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City, during which forces from the 401st Brigade and additional forces from the 162nd Division destroyed a total of 35 sites and killed more than 113 Palestinians, claiming that they were resistance activists.

On April 18 of the same year, soldiers of the 401st Brigade - according to statements by the occupation army, in cooperation with the forces of the “Yahalom” unit - destroyed more than 100 sites and killed more than 40 Palestinians under the pretext of being “terrorists.” The same brigade participated in the incursions that targeted the Jabalia camp , and its members stormed homes, claiming that they found long-range missiles, launching columns, ammunition, and tunnel passages belonging to Hamas.

On May 7, 2024, this brigade took control of the Rafah crossing , after the occupation authorities ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from large parts of the city of Rafah , including the areas of the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings. The attack led to the closure of the two crossings, which represent the lifeline of the Strip. The Israeli army claimed that it took control of the Rafah crossing after receiving intelligence information that it was “being used for terrorist purposes.”

In early March 2024, Israeli media revealed that 650 soldiers from the 401st Brigade had been injured since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, some of them seriously. The Israeli forces also announced a list of their soldiers killed in the war, and among them were about 25 dead soldiers from the brigade. . The Hamas movement highlighted - in a video published in late May 2024 - the names and pictures of soldiers and officers belonging to the 401 Brigade who were killed in Gaza.

The commando brigade, also known as "Oz", was established on December 27, 2015 following the directive of the Chief of Staff, Major General Gadi Eisenkot, as part of the multi-year "Gideon" program. On the flag of the brigade is emblazoned the slogan: "Your hand is in the back of your enemies". The main mission of the brigade is to operate with speed, power and operational flexibility against the enemy - both at the front and in depth.

The commando brigade serves as the elite brigade of the ground forces, and is an available, independent, fast and dynamic brigade that emphasizes innovation and technology. In accordance with its operational needs for strengthening and building the brigade, the Yaftah Unit, the Weapons Development Unit, and the Air Medical Unit (YRA) were also subordinated to it. The brigade's fighters specialize in close contact warfare (threats of infiltration, kidnappings, IEDs), in complex targets and in carrying out long-term raids, all while operating in any context for which they are required: from specific surgical operations to high-intensity operations.

The brigade brings together three of the elite field units of the IDF: Walnut, Magellan, and Dovdevan. Each of the elite units has a different operational specialization and its own special course of action.

The Egoz unit was established in 1995 and was named after the mythological "Egoz" cruiser. The unit was established in order to bring about a transformation in the IDF's capabilities against the terrorist organization "Hezbollah", and to this day it specializes in guerrilla warfare - mainly along the northern border of the country. The essence of Agoz is also expressed through the unit's slogan: "I will pursue my enemies and I will get them and I will not return until they are all gone."

"Agoz" specializes in combat in tangled terrain, in ambushes, camouflage, as well as in small-scale warfare - short-range combat in which the quality and professionalism of the fighter is the main ingredient for its success. The unit operates at any time, in any arena and in any sector while focusing on the northern sector. The unit also has a unique military platoon - the unit's development platoon, which is responsible for finding creative solutions and technological innovations for problems that arise in the field, and providing protection against new ways of attack by the enemy.

In the 1990s, the IDF was sitting deep in the security line posts in southern Lebanon, and almost every day there were security incidents that included massive rocket fire at the IDF posts and clashes with Hezbollah terrorists who were in the area. So it was decided to establish a special unit - the 'Nut Patrol', which will specialize in 'guerrilla' fighting in the northern sector - and will end the stubborn struggle against Hezbollah in Israel's favor.

Until the trrops got to Agoz, all their training was focused on the Gaza Strip, and they didn't know the Northern Strip at all. They arrived as war machines, 'refrigerators,' who thought no one could beat us. But upon arrival at the new unit, it became clear that in order to adapt to the Lebanese sector, they had to lose weight and had two months to become 'cats'. "Nut warriors" need to be flexible and fast, able to jump over rocks and pits, walk crouched for hours in tall vegetation and ambush the enemy in complete silence from a thicket and hit him hard. They have to be invisible on the one hand, but deadly on the other. This is what will separate life from death during service.

After four challenging months, the unit began to operate and bring impressive results. They would carry out special missions on a daily basis and encounter the enemy many times. The abilities we acquired meant that almost every encounter ended with Agoz having the upper hand. In September 1997, a week after the 'Flying Disaster' in which 11 fighters of the 13th Fleet were killed, the company received the order to go on Operation 'Wild Landscape'. It was a relatively simple operation, prepared for in maybe a day. The idea was to leave with a force of three teams from Rihan outpost towards some wadi, where Hezbollah terrorists were often running around. We had to place five charges there and carry out an ambush that lasted three days. It was another normal day at work. ix months later, in June 1998, Israel and Hezbollah agreed on a prisoner exchange deal, under which the body of the late Itamar Eliya returned home in exchange for the return of Hadi Nasrallah's body.

Along with the similarities between the fighters of the past and the younger generation that serves in it today, there have also been quite a few changes in Agoz. In recent years, the unit operates frequently in Judea and Samaria and in the Gaza Strip sector, which officially made it a sector-wide commando unit. This definition even sharpened even more with the establishment of the commando brigade at the end of 2015 and the incorporation of a nut into it, after years in which the unit sat under the northern Golani brigade. The transition to commando strengthened the ability to deal lethally with any threat, in any sector that is required. Over the years, the unit transformed from a fairly small outfit with one significant mission and specialization, to one of the leading commando units in the IDF. With the powerful fighters, the special means of warfare, the dedicated operational skills for all combat divisions, and in addition the operational envelope provided by the new brigade - there is no challenge today that the Nut unit will not find a solution to."

magellan-bn.gif"> The March 2003 multiyear defense plan was known as the Kela Plan Anthony H. Cordesman noted in 2004 that Israel’s use of reserves made it dependent on timely mobilization for its war fighting capability. Israel required 36-48 hours of strategic warning and reaction time to fully prepare its defenses in the Golan -- its most vulnerable front. Only about one-third of Israel’s total manpower consisted of full time actives, and much of this manpower consisted of conscripts. Some of Israel’s best troops consisted of its younger reserves.

Several reports indicated that the IDF would cut its ground forces by more than 25% over the next five years. These sources describe a ‘Kela 2008’ plan, where reserve armored units will be reduced drastically and most of the M60 and Merkava Mk1 tanks will be converted to APCs. The military will outsource maintenance and administration functions in an effort to cut costs further. Initiatives that will surely raise concerns among soldiers and veterans are a move to cut wages up to 20%, the elimination of welfare programs for officers, and the increase in the minimum retirement age. Overall, the army will cut 10% of its regular forces and minimize the use of unskilled reservists who typically incur large operating expenses.

The effect these cuts would have on the IDF’s ability to confront Palestinian militants was also unclear. Some reports indicated that the IDF believed that Kela 2008 will streamline their forces, make them more effective, and cut unnecessary costs. However, some of the measures, such as the pay cuts and elimination of jobs, were likely to be highly unpopular and run the risk of fomenting discontent within the military. At a time when Israel leaned increasingly heavily on the IDF despite reduced threats from Iraq and Syria, cuts in benefits are likely to discourage Israelis from pursuing long-term military careers.

In addition, a panel of industrialists, former generals, and security experts recommended further reductions on top of the Kela plan. In fact, defense budgets were cut significantly below the levels specified in the Kela Plan. The annual budget was eventually set at NIS [new Israeli shekel] 2.5 billion [approximately US$566 million] less than the Kela plan’s base budget. In this situation the military rightly decided it would be correct that risk-taking be mainly in the area of war preparedness (inventory levels, technical competence, training levels). Since this area, unlike others, is given to changes and improvement within several months from the issue of a warning, everyone was convinced that enough lead time would be available.

Winograd Commission was very clear on this point, noting on p. 258 that "the defense budget cuts caused the IDF, in accordance with the prioritization that it carried out in accordance with its considerations, to cut back on training and exercises, in the standing forces, and in the reserve forces alike. These constraints, together with the assessment that a significant military conflagration within the close radius to Israel (beyond the activity in the Gaza, Judea, and Samaria areas) was considered a possibility — if that — only after a gradual deterioration and escalation, or [upon] . . . Israel’s initiative, led to the decision that it would be correct for the IDF to take a calculated risk and count on the option of the IDF preparing for a campaign, including gap closure in training and arming, in the event that this would be required.""

By 2006 the IDF was in a transition, begun in the mid-1990s, away from a traditional, “symmetrical” view of warfare. This shift was summed up in the final report of the Winograd Commission: "The IDF’s operational concept (the old concept) was devised at the time vis-à-vis known threats in a “symmetrical” environment that was familiar and stationary and focused on eliminating them. The “motto” included the following three elements: deterrence, early-warning, and deciding the battle. The basic idea was to concentrate a large ground force, with support from the Air Force, to transport the war quickly into enemy territory, and to attain a quick decision of the battle by capturing enemy territory and defeating the army in terms of its ability and desire to pursue the war. This was complemented by the basic postulation of “blue skies,” namely the Air Force superiority, and the avoidance of exposing the home front to real attacks."

This shift made sense. Many believed that there had been a “transition from a pattern of symmetri- cal wars between regular armies and sovereign, solidified countries to asymmetrical conflicts with limited or high intensity against armed elements that rely on a sympathetic local population that assists non-government bodies from within.” This view had been reinforced by Israeli experiences during the two intifadas and by the low level of threat from neighboring states.

Israel executed Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, reoccupying West Bank cities and besieging President of the Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah in the est Bank. Operation Defensive Shield was a large-scale military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 2002 during the Second Intifada. The operation, which took place from March 29 to April 21, 2002, was primarily focused on the West Bank. Its primary objectives were to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure of various Palestinian militant groups, particularly Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which had carried out numerous attacks against Israeli civilians.

The operation was triggered by a series of deadly suicide bombings, including the attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002, which killed 30 Israeli civilians during a Passover Seder. It was the largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War, involving tens of thousands of Israeli troops. The operation targeted major Palestinian cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, and Tulkarm.

The IDF besieged the Mukataa, the headquarters of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. One of the most intense and controversial battles occurred in the Jenin refugee camp, resulting in significant casualties and extensive destruction. Thousands of Palestinians were arrested, and large caches of weapons and explosives were seized. The operation caused significant hardship for the Palestinian civilian population, including curfews, destruction of infrastructure, and restricted movement.

Operation Defensive Shield drew widespread international criticism. Human rights organizations expressed concerns over the use of excessive force and the humanitarian impact on Palestinian civilians. The United Nations and various countries called for investigations into alleged human rights abuses. The operation succeeded in reducing the frequency of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks in Israel. It significantly weakened the operational capabilities of Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank. However, it also led to increased animosity and further entrenched the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Arab world remained indifferent, leading the Israelis to conclude that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, severe and crisis-ridden as it might be, does not factor into the Arab states’ deliberations as to launching a war against Israel, either individually or jointly.

The IDF published its multi-year plan, called "Maalot" ["degrees" or "Virtues"] on 20 May 2015. At the seminar where the plan was presented, the essence of the name was explained: "it was chosen to symbolize a process of climbing in which there is an ascent continuous, step by step, to new peaks and highs." The name 'Maalot' was chosen to symbolize a process of climbing in which there is a continuous ascent, step by step, to new summits and peaks. The climbing process, which involves a gradual and dynamic transition between the stages, means that the program is another and important stage in the development of the IDF's power structure.

As part of the plan, the Chief of Staff defined 4 main main themes: people and an army-society, within which the state of israel can only meet its challenges if the good and the fit choose to continue meaningful service. The people's army model is the main enabler of the human quality of the idf and is an integral part of its identity. The program will put a major emphasis on the IDF's servants - keeping the people with the best, quality and best virtues over time - they are the ones who will enable the IDF to fulfill its missions in the long term.

The security reality requires the IDF to strengthen its readiness in the face of the iranian and multi-arena threat. The program will deal with upgrading capabilities in the field of collection, defense and attack. maneuvering and border protection - to meet the mission of protecting the state of israel. The IDF will act in order to train better and strengthen maneuver readiness within multi-armed cooperation.

The symbol includes several circles that represent the operation of the IDF in the matching circles. The circle has a prominent angle to the east, which represents the focus towards Iran. The circles represent a 360 degree response to the multi-sector scenario. Also, the three circles symbolize the three main characteristics in building strength for combat - knowledge, precision and strength. The L in the symbol goes out of the frame, and symbolizes values of "breakthrough" and reaching new achievements, outside the box.

The Chief of Staff defined 4 main main issues for 2017: 1. People and army-society - the State of Israel will only be able to meet its challenges if the good and suitable choose to continue meaningful service. The People's Army model is the main enabler of the human quality of the IDF and is an integral part of its identity. 2. Iran and multi-arena - The security reality requires the IDF to strengthen its readiness in the face of the Iranian and multi-arena threat. The program will deal with upgrading capabilities in the field of collection, defense and attack. 3. Maneuvering and border protection - to fulfill the task of protecting the State of Israel. The IDF will act in order to train better and strengthen maneuver readiness within multi-armed cooperation. 4. Operational and organizational culture - The IDF is required to strengthen the young command in the IDF, strengthen among them the sense of responsibility and work to effectively exhaust human capital The plan will deal with the optimization of the military organizational system on all its components, in order to strengthen the army's performance in a variety of fields.

With the entry of R.A. Aviv Kochavi into his position as Chief of the General Staff , the IDF conducted an in-depth diagnostic process, the conclusions of which are that the IDF is prepared to carry out its tasks in the face of the terms of reference, but in a long-term view, the significance of the achievement and the length of time that will be required to meet the goals of the war are on the verge of erosion Moreover, the enemy is getting stronger and more sophisticated both in terms of the quality and scope of the military and in the concepts of combat and it is necessary to adapt the IDF force to the developing battlefield . At the same time, global developments, first of all the strengthening of Iran and the possibility of renewing its nuclear program , required a new thinking. In January 2019 , the IDF began a multi-year planning process, which ended at the end of 2019, with the publication of the multi-year plan "Tnufa". The year 2020 is the first year for the realization of the 2015 "Tnufa".

The multi-year plan "Tnufa" was built in the light of the concept of activation for victory - the formation of the characteristics of the operation and the achievement required of the IDF in combat. The "Tnufa" program emphasizes increasing the lethality of the IDF, exposing the disappearing enemy in the urban space and rapid attack with great power and precision, all This is based on multi-military, branch and organizational and multi-dimensional capabilities that exhaust the strength of the IDF in the various areas. In practice, this means harnessing the powerful systemic capabilities for the benefit of the operational-tactical end, a digital land army , by uploading the IDF to the cloud - connecting everyone to everyone (the Majd with the pilot , the tank with the operator of the helicopter or naval vessel, etc.)[1]When every weapon and end unit is also a sensor that warns of threats, acquires targets and distributes the information to a rear 'desk' that integrates all the information from the maneuvering units and puts out to 'tender' the target and also the 'trigger' capable of removing threats and eliminating targets assigned to it by the 'Desk'.

In January 2019 , Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi took office , and began to outline the multi-year plan "Momentum" for the years 2020-2024 . For the purpose of formulating the 2018 plan, the Chief of Staff led an in-depth process that began with the construction of the strategic framework for the coming years, the definition of the characteristics of the enemy and the nature of the fighting in light of which the military force will be built in the 2019 years, clarification and investigation of the elements required for the way the IDF operates in order to meet the required operational achievement , and accordingly formulating a multi-year plan for the implementation and realization of these components.

The 2018 planning process included four major milestones:

The victory workshop - a workshop centered on the question "How will the IDF win the next war?". The product of the workshop and the accompanying work process is the "operational concept for victory". The purpose of the concept is to improve the combat effectiveness of the IDF and increase the military advantage, in order to decisively defeat the enemy in a short time, alongside improving readiness and adaptation to the characteristics of the battlefield through change and modernization. Situation assessment workshop and courses of action - a workshop that dealt with the assessment of the IDF's capabilities to implement the "operational concept for victory", the diagnosis of the main gaps and voting on the required courses of action. The result of the workshop was the departure of about 40 IDF teams to form force-building plans in a variety of fields[7]. Summary of the 2018 formation phase - an integrative process for examining all the recommendations of the teams, focusing and prioritizing the various plans in order to formulate a multi-year force building plan for different time frames (the time frame is close to 2030 ) at different resource levels. The Chief of Staff's summary for 2017 - at the end of the work process of the teams and the workshops that took place, the common spaces were marked and a series of discussions was held led by the Chief of Staff to focus the recommendations for 2018. The 2015 was presented to the political level and within the IDF in conferences with many participants.

Victory - a considerable increase of the military advantage in order to defeat the enemy in a clear and short time, alongside improving readiness and adaptation to the characteristics of the battlefield, through change and modernization that will lead to the strengthening of intelligence and increasing the ability to expose the enemy, increasing the offensive capacity and increasing the production of targets, strengthening the capabilities of the operational end, realizing the principle of multi-purpose Dimensionality and the creation of broad connectivity, the germination of innovative fighting methods and the implementation of advanced military intelligence.

The man is precious - implementing the principle of "the man is precious" and increasing the attractiveness of the service , by deepening the meaning and leadership , the personal relationship, the culture and the conditions of those serving in the IDF. The concept strengthens and increases the emphasis placed on manpower and its exploitation, and it serves as a guiding principle in the IDF. Fighting spirit and values- cultivating the IDF as the people's army , values ??and state , encourages criticism and efficiency, initiative and innovation, is an example and model, and is true for every mission. Realization - the realization of the 2015 with determined leadership at all levels.