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Israeli Engineering Corps
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The Israeli Combat Engineering Corps ( Heil HaHandasa HaKravit) is the combat engineering forces of the Israel Defense Forces.
The Combat Engineering Corps beret's color is silver and their symbol features a sword on a defensive tower with a blast halo on the background. The Combat Engineering Corps mottos are "Always First" (??????? ???? Rishonim Tamid) and the unofficial "The hard - we shall do today, the impossible - we shall do tomorrow".
Their roles include mobility assurance, road breaching, defense and fortifications, counter-mobility of enemy forces, construction and destruction under fire, sabotage, explosives, counter-NBC and special engineering missions.
In addition to Combat Engineering Corps sappers, each infantry brigade has an engineering company trained with basic engineering and EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) skills.
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Encyclopedia
The Israeli Combat Engineering Corps ( Heil HaHandasa HaKravit) is the combat engineering forces of the Israel Defense Forces.
The Combat Engineering Corps beret's color is silver and their symbol features a sword on a defensive tower with a blast halo on the background. The Combat Engineering Corps mottos are "Always First" (??????? ???? Rishonim Tamid) and the unofficial "The hard - we shall do today, the impossible - we shall do tomorrow".
Their roles include mobility assurance, road breaching, defense and fortifications, counter-mobility of enemy forces, construction and destruction under fire, sabotage, explosives, counter-NBC and special engineering missions.
In addition to Combat Engineering Corps sappers, each infantry brigade has an engineering company trained with basic engineering and EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) skills. Combat Engineering Corps sappers are often attached to other units (such as armored or infantry brigades) in order to help them breach through obstacles and handle explosive threats.
Roles
Beside extensive training in basic combat engineering, Combat Engineering Corps are specialized and go through advanced training in their profession. The professions are:
- Sapper: trained with all the basic engineering skills and also trained at high infantry level. Their main role is to breach through terrain obstacles (natural and artificial), breach through minefields and enable ground forces to advance in the battle field. They are trained to supply close combat support for both armored fighting vehicles and infantry. Some of them are trained in driving the Combat Engineering Corps standard CEV: the IDF Puma.
- Engineering Vehicles Operator (EVO): less combatant but nonetheless important, these soldiers are skilled in the operation of heavy mechanical equipment and engineering vehicles such as heavy bulldozers, excavators, cranes, tractors and mine-breaching devices. EVO units are called ??"? (Tzama) in Hebrew, accronimus of Tziyud Mechani Handasi (Mechanical Engineering Equipment).
- Bulldozer Operators: belong to the EVO, these soldiers are operating the IDF Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozers, including under heavy fire. Their roles are versatile and differ according to the units whom they are attached. The D9 operators perform construction, destruction, breaching and EOD missions while assisting to tanks, infantry and even special forces during battle.
- NBC Disposal: called "purifiers", they are expert in handling nuclear, biological and chemical threats.
- EOD experts: the Explosive Ordnance Disposal are experts in detonating explosives without damage. Among their equipment you can find the Barrett M82A1 and remote-control EOD robots with shotguns and mechanic-arms. The EOD are the military equivalent of the police's bomb squad. In the IDF, they are a part of the elite Engineering unit Sayeret Yaalom.
- Demolition experts: they are specially trained in blowing up things in the most accurate and effective way. They explode things ranging from cellular phones and doorlocks up to tanks and large buildings. In the IDF, the demolition experts are united in Sayeret Yaalom (Sayeret is the Israeli name for SF elite unit) and therefore gain high infantry training as well.
- Fortification experts: assigned on designing and overseeing the construction of bases, outposts, bridges and fortifications. Construction itself is usually done by the EVOs.
- Counter-Tunnels experts: established in 2003 by the late Captain Aviv Hakani, these Combat Engineering Corps soldiers are expert in finding smuggling tunnels and demolishing them. They operate in Rafah during the al-Aqsa Intifada and received recommendation of honor for their activity. The Rafah tunnel team was united with the Combat Engineering Corps elite unit Sayeret Yahalom.
Units
- Combat Engineering Battalions
- Asaf 601 ???
- HaMachatz 605 ????
- Lahav 603 ???
- Command's Engineering Units
- Special Engineering Vehicles (TZAMA ??"?) units
- Knights of Steel ????? ????? - Tzama Gaza
- Wild Cats ????? ??? - Tzama Yeuda and Shomron
- Beit Hilel ??? ??? - Tzama North
- Yahalom - special engineering unit ???"?
- Counter-NBC and purifiers
- Counter-NBC battalion 76
- Yanshuf - NBC training center
History
Founding of the corps
The Israeli Combat Engineering Corps are based upon the sabotage unit of the Palmach and the tractors operators units of the Israeli War of Independence. In the first years, the Combat Engineering Corps drew their soldiers mainly from Jews who served in the British Royal Engineers.
The Combat Engineering Corps have record of great professional achievements and breaking-through decorations. The Engineering Corps' most famous operation is the breaching of the Suez Canal in Yom Kippur War.
In the Israeli wars
In the Israeli War of Independence, the Combat Engineering Corps blasted bridges over the Jordan River and the streams of the southern Coastal plain in order to stop the advance of the Arab armored forces into the Israeli civilian rear. The Combat Engineering Corps also helped in breaching the "Burma Road" into the then besieged Jerusalem.
In the 1956 Sinai war the Combat Engineering Corps destroyed the Egyptian military infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula and were awarded with a battalion recommendation of honor (TZALASH).
In the 1967 Six Day War the Combat Engineering Corps stormed the Jordanian fortifications, which were the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. After the Israelis annexed the entire Old City, the Combat Engineering Corps removed landmines planted in the city by the Jordanians. This was the first war in which Caterpillar D9 bulldozers were employed by the Combat Engineering Corps.
After the war, the Combat Engineering Corps helped to build a fortification line of defense along the Suez Canal and was awarded the Israel Security Prize in 1969. The Israeli Engineering Corps were the first corps to ever win such an award.
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War the Combat Engineering Corps battalions attached to Ariel Sharon's armored Brigade breached the Suez Canal and built bridges over it in "Operation Knights of Heart" while carrying tanks and paratroopers across the canal with Gillois amphibious tank-carriers. This effort enabled Sharon and Avraam Eden "Bern" armored divisions to pass the canal and surround the 3rd Egyptian Army, forcing it to surrender. The bridging of the canal is regarded by many as the turning point of the war in the southern front. On the northern front, a Combat Engineering Corps Caterpillar D9 bulldozer was the first ever motorized vehicle to reach the peak of the Hermon.
In the Operation Peace for Galilee the Combat Engineering Corps worked intensively to open routes to Israeli forces. Their duties also included the disarming landmines and IEDs as well as building fortifications and outposts.
In the 1991 Gulf War, the NBC purifiers of the Combat Engineering Corps were on a "code red" alert for disarming Iraqi Scud missiles, armed with non-conventional warheads.
The October 2000 Lebanon abduction
On October 7 2000 three Israeli combat engineering soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah from the Shebaa Farms, in the Golan Heights. The soldiers, Beni Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Sawaed, suffered fatal injuries during their abduction. Their bodies were retrieved in 2004 at a prisoner swap deal with Hezbollah.
A series of accusations were made against the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) by press and partisan web sites for having cooperated with the abduction. Those accusations stem from a video, whose existence was originally denied by U.N. officials, recorded by Indian peacekeepers one day after the abduction. The video, which the U.N. agreed to provide to Israeli officials in June 2001 with civilian faces blurred, showed abandoned vehicles with fake U.N. license plates and uniforms, and Hezbollah supporters intercepting U.N. efforts to retrieve the vehicles. A U.N. investigation also found no evidence to support accusations of peacekeepers involvement in the abduction. Although the bereaved families met with Kofi Annan, they refused to accept the UN version. On September 2004, the bereaved families announced their intention to sue the UN, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Lebanon for their parts in the abduction.
The al-Aqsa Intifada
During the al-Aqsa Intifada, which erupted in September 2000, the Combat Engineering Corps were employed to disarm many Palestinian IED explosive charges and booby traps. In many cases, the Combat Engineering Corps also detonated explosive belts captured on Palestinian suicide bombers. The Combat Engineering Corps also dynamited Palestinian houses, bomb labs and smuggling tunnels.
However, the Combat Engineering Corps were most known for operating the armored IDF Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, which are cited by many Israelis and military experts as a key factor in keeping IDF casualties low and successfully fighting terrorism. On the other side, for Palestinians, the bulldozers became a nightmare, as they bulldozed many Palestinian buildings and shrubbery, and were almost impervious to Palestinian attacks. The Combat Engineering Corps bulldozers' operators unit received an honor of recommendation for its activity in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield.
Bulldozers were also massively employed in Rafah to counter terrorist smuggling tunnels. Human Rights Watch published a criticizing the extensive destruction of Palestinian houses in the southern Gaza strip, and said it was unlawful, claiming that Israel uses the Palestinian smuggling tunnels as a pretext to create a "buffer zone" along the Gaza-Egypt border. In Rafah, the Combat Engineering Corps formed a special unit, designated for searching and destroying smuggling tunnels, it is called SAMUR and now belongs to Yaalom. They also received an honor of recommendation, for their conduct. Until the Disengagement plan, the Combat Engineering 603 battalion's Reconnaissance platoon (???"?) held a record of over 70 terrorists killed in 2004-2005 on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. They received an honor of recommendation for this achievement.
For further discussions see: al-Aqsa Intifada, Armored bulldozer, Operation Defensive Shield, Battle of Jenin 2002, Operation Rainbow.
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