In an end of the year assessment, IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi said the Israeli army successfully overcame all challenges to fulfill its top priority to ensure the nation’s defense and security while operating “intensively” in six arenas mandating monthly, weekly or daily activities.
According to a statement TV7 obtained from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Lt. Gen. Kochavi many of the army’s most notable achievements is reflected on the northern frontier.
“Iran’s establishment in Syria is clearly slowing down as a result of IDF activity,” he said, witnessed by a significant reduction of Iranian operatives and militia personnel on the ground, evacuation of Iranian camps, headquarters and bases from Damascus, and a major reduction in the number of routes used by the Islamic Republic to transfer arms to the Arab Republic.
Other key achievements in 2020 include multidimensional defense efforts based on intelligence and operational capabilities.
The military chief expressed pride that each and every attempted infiltration into the country was thwarted on all borders, while there was also a downward trend in the number of deaths and security incidents in the Judea and Samaria Division.
There has also been an “improvement in Surface-to-Surface Rockets and Mortars interception capabilities and an expansion of the coverage radius of the Iron Dome array,” he noted, as well as “an increase in activity in the offensive and defensive cyber dimension” and the start of the “actualization of a ‘smart and lethal border’ based on autonomous means.”
“This year we struck about 500 targets in all arenas, and in addition we carried out many operations in the secret dimension,” noting that the main combat arena that has changed this year is the cyber dimension – “where we carried out many offensive operations.”
Efforts in the ‘campaign between wars’ yielded heightened “pace and quality of operations through an increase in physical operations to an expansion of covert and confidential activity,” noted the Chief of Staff, adding that “promotion of readiness for a broad military campaign” was ongoing, including additional and intensified “training for battle days in the northern and southern arenas” and upgrade of “the target array and scope of weapons.
In addition, Lt. Gen. Kochavi pointed to the writing of updated operational plans “in accordance with the concept of operation towards victory, which was distributed this month to the ranks of lieutenant colonels and above throughout the IDF – with the goal of expanding and reinforcing the shared language.”
The most prominent of the Israeli military’s readiness and training occurred during the multi-system “Lethal Arrow” exercise in October, focused on the operation of the General Staff firepower, digital management of the circle of fire, and control of urban areas with a combined maneuvering effort and fighting in the spectral dimension.
“In the field of Force Design,” said Israel’s top military commander, “more than 90% of the organizational tasks defined in this year’s Tenufa (Momentum) project were fulfilled.” He concluded his remarks by disclosing that in the near future a status update of the implementation in the IDF will be presented at a General Staff workshop, “identifying options for further efficiency, and directing the planning and key tasks facing the IDF in 2021.”