IDF Chief of Staff: Israel Has Never Fought Such A War

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir visited the Ground Forces headquarters today (Wednesday), where he made the following statement:

"There has never been such a war in the history of the IDF - we are operating in Tehran, Sana'a, Beirut, Syria, Jenin, and in the main center of gravity - the Gaza Strip. Part of the time we are operating simultaneously in multiple arenas. We are at a very significant crossroads that will affect the continuation of the campaign."

"The ground arm is the maneuvering arm," the Chief of Staff continued, "it is impossible without it and ground operational capability is a strategic decisive ability against our enemies in the first circle. In the upcoming multi-year plan, ground components are at the center. We will expand and strengthen ground capabilities, enhance the maneuvering capacity and lethality of battalion and brigade combat teams. We will strengthen robotics capabilities that will integrate as part of combat teams, remote operation and improvement of terrain hold, enemy identification and rapid closure of circles. We must quickly build and implement an updated concept in this spirit."

"Simultaneously, at the base of force building will stand the extraction of lessons from the war events - multi-arm combat in built-up terrain saturated with explosives with underground medium as a combat dimension."

"The people are our most important thing. In every tour I conduct I am impressed by the soldiers and commanders. In command there is great satisfaction alongside great responsibility. We invest great efforts in training commanders and ensure, even during the war, to train them fully and professionally. My directive is to minimize damage to training to a minimum."

"Today a reserve officers course ends, a course that entered during the war and only proves again that the IDF's strength and operation lies in quality officers and in this context strong reserve units are units with a strong professional and ethical command backbone. We will continue to develop the training and certification processes of commanders in the spirit of the times."