Israeli Southern Command

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Israeli Southern Command

The Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
i Southern Command (transliterated

Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
: Pikud Darom), often abbreviated to Padam (??"?) is a regional command

Command (military formation)

A command in military terminology has several meanings.In referring to military organization it is a collection of military unit or a group of personnel under the control of a single officer....
of the Israel Defense Forces

Israel Defense Forces

The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew Acronym and initialism Tzahal , are Israel's military forces, comprising the GOC Army Headquarters, Israeli Air Force and Israeli navy....
. It is responsible for the Negev

Negev

The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The indigenous Negev Bedouin inhabitants of the region refer to the desert as al-Naqab ....
, the Arabah

Arabah

The Arabah is a section of the Great Rift Valley lying between the Dead Sea to the north and the Gulf of Aqaba to the south. It forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east....
, and Eilat

Eilat

Eilat is Israel's South District city, a busy port as well as a popular resort, located at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aqaba....
. It is currently headed by Aluf

Aluf

Aluf is the term used for General and Admiral in the Israel Defense Forces . In addition to the Aluf rank itself, there are four other ranks which are derivatives of the word....
Yoav Galant

Yoav Galant

Aluf Yoav Galant is the commander of the Israel Defense Forces Israeli Southern Command.Born in Jaffa, Israel, Galant received a B.A. in Business and Finance Management from the University of Haifa....
.
many years the Southern Command was tasked with defending the Negev

Negev

The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The indigenous Negev Bedouin inhabitants of the region refer to the desert as al-Naqab ....
and securing the border on the Sinai Peninsula

Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, forming a land bridge between Africa and Southwest Asia....
from Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
.

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Encyclopedia

The Israel

Israel

Transliteration

Command (military formation)

Israel Defense Forces

Negev

The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The indigenous Negev Bedouin inhabitants of the region refer to the desert as al-Naqab ....
, the Arabah

Arabah

Eilat

Eilat is Israel's South District city, a busy port as well as a popular resort, located at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aqaba....
. It is currently headed by Aluf

Aluf

Aluf is the term used for General and Admiral in the Israel Defense Forces . In addition to the Aluf rank itself, there are four other ranks which are derivatives of the word....
Yoav Galant

Yoav Galant

History

For many years the Southern Command was tasked with defending the Negev

Negev

Sinai Peninsula

Egypt

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known by the Israelis predominantly as War of Independence and War of Liberation , and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the Declaration of Independence State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict....
, the Suez War, the Six-Day War

Six-Day War

In the Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967, Israel defeated the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In Arabic, the war is called ....
, the War of Attrition

War of Attrition

The War of Attrition was a limited war fought between Israel and forces of the Egyptian Republic and the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1967 to 1970....
, and the Yom Kippur War

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973 by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel....
. This high operational activity and its demanding toll resulted in the Southern Command's Aluf

Aluf

Aluf is the term used for General and Admiral in the Israel Defense Forces . In addition to the Aluf rank itself, there are four other ranks which are derivatives of the word....
s (SCA) being replaced fairly rapidly. The most famous replacements took place in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, when Shmuel Gonen

Shmuel Gonen

Shmuel "Gorodish" Gonen was an Israeli general and Chief of the Israeli Southern Command of the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War....
was suspended as the SCA due to repeated disputes with Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon

is a former Israeli Prime Minister of Israel and military leader. Sharon served as Prime Minister from March 2001 until April 2006, though he was unable to carry out his duties after suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006, when he fell into a coma and entered a persistent vegetative state....
, who was the previous SCA. The government appointed Chaim Bar-Lev

Chaim Bar-Lev

Chaim "Kidoni" Bar-Lev was a military officer during Israel's pre-state and early statehood eras and later a Cabinet of Israel.Biography...
, who was the former Chief of Staff

Ramatkal

The Chief of General Staff is the supreme commander and Chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. The Chief of Staff is the only active Israeli officer with the rank of Rav Aluf at any given time....
, as the new SCA in an emergency directive. After the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty

Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty

The Egyptian?Israeli Peace Treaty was signed in Washington, DC, United States, on March 26, 1979, following the Camp David Accords . The main features of the treaty were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Isra...
, the southern front remained quiet and most of the activity centred on guarding the borders from smugglers

Smuggling

Smuggling, also known as trafficking, is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons past a point where prohibited, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of the law or other rules....
and fluid security over the Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip is a coastal strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Egypt on the south-west and Israel on the south, east and north....
.

During the Al-Aqsa Intifada

Al-Aqsa Intifada

The Second Intifada, also known as the al-Aqsa Intifada was the second Palestinian people uprising, a period of intensified Israeli?Palestinian conflict violence, which began in late September 2000....
, the Command was placed in charge-of counter-terrorist

Counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism refers to the practices, Military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, military, police departments and corporations adopt in response to terrorism, both real and imputed....
efforts. The Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated

List of countries by population density

This is a list of countries and dependencies ranked by human population density and measured by inhabitants/km?. The list includes sovereign states and self-governing dependent territories that are recognized by the United Nations....
places in the world, was known as a stronghold for extremist

Islamic fundamentalism

Islamic fundamentalism Arabic language: usul , is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah....
groups such as Hamas

Hamas

Hamas is an Islamic Palestine socio-political organization which includes a paramilitary force, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Since June 2007, Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip portion of the Palestinian Territories....
and Islamic Jihad, who engaged in Palestinian political violence

Palestinian political violence

Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence committed for political reasons by Palestinians. Palestinian groups that support and carry out politically-motivated violent acts have included Hamas, the Palestinian Liberation Organization ,the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine, Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Popular Front f...
. The local production and proliferation of light anti-tank weapons by these groups, made travel by lightly-armored vehicles dangerous. From 2004, the fighting in Gaza became especially intensive, and on the IDF's part, included Targeted killings, short armored expeditions, and efforts to locate and destroy the smuggling tunnels used by Palestinian militant groups to obtain weapons.

These armed encounters have resulted in considerable losses for the IDF. Due to the failures to stop the launch of Qassam rocket

Qassam rocket

The Qassam rocket is a simple steel rocket filled with explosives, produced by Hamas. Three models have been used. They are all free-flying artillery rockets lacking any guidance system....
s and smuggling tunnels activities, the Engineering Corps

Israeli Engineering Corps

The Israeli Combat Engineering Corps 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 explosion Halo on the background....
exposed and destroyed (according to human rights

Human rights

Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedom to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of speech, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, i...
organizations) thousands of homes in southern Gaza. During 2005, the Southern Command was involved in the unilateral Gaza disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan , also known as the "Disengagement plan", "Gaza pull-out plan", and "Hitnatkut") was a proposal by Prime Ministers of Israel Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from four Israeli settlements in the northern West...
, initiated by Ariel Sharon (Prime Minister of Israel

Prime Minister of Israel

The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and is the most powerful political officer in Israel . He or she wields executive power in the country, and has an official residence in Jerusalem....
, 2001-2006), which mainly entailed the removals of all Israeli settlement

Israeli settlement

Israeli settlements are communities inhabited by Israelis in territory that was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, which is partially under Israeli military administration and partially under the control of the Palestinian National Authority, and in the Golan Heights, which are under Isr...
s from the Gaza Strip and back to the Israeli side of the Green Line

Green Line (Israel)

The term Green Line is used to refer to the 1949 Armistice Agreements established between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War....
. The Command re-situated itself north of the Gaza fence, while the Philadelphi Route

Philadelphi Route

The Philadelphi Route was an Israel Defense Forces code name for the strip of land along the border between Egypt and Israel. Under the Oslo Accords, the portion in the Gaza Strip remained under direct Israeli military control....
was given to Egypt, who did not however prevent the movement of thousands of Palestinians between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai through the city of Rafah

Rafah

File:Location Rhafa.pngRafah is a Palestinian people city in the southern Gaza Strip, but also extends into the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Located south of Gaza, Rafah's population of 71,000 is overwhelmingly made up of Palestinian refugees....
. As 2006, the attempt to infiltrate Israel to perform suicide bombings

Suicide attack

A suicide attack is an attack intended to kill others and inflict widespread damage in the knowledge that one will die in the process....
and the launch of Qassam rockets, especially by Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees

Popular Resistance Committees

The Popular Resistance Committees are various Palestinian militant organizations which operate in the Gaza Strip and are regarded as List of designated terrorist organizations by Israel and the United States....
, remains ongoing and is the central focus of the Southern Command.

Units

Southern Corps HQ
366th "Amud ha-Esh"/"Pillar of Fire" Armor Division
366th Division (IDF)

The Israel Defense Forces 366th Israeli Armor Corps Division_, also known as the "Amud ha-Esh"/"Pillar of Fire" Division, is a reserve armor division in the IDF....
(Reserve)

460th "Bnei Or"/"Sons of Light" Armor Training Brigade
460th Brigade (IDF)

The Israel Defense Forces 460th ?Bnei Or?/?Sons of Light? Israeli Armor Corps Brigade is the training formation for Israel's Armored Forces. It is subordinate to the Israeli Southern Command....
84th "Giv'ati" Infantry Brigade
Givati Brigade

The Givati Brigade functions as the Marines and is one of the Israeli Infantry Corps in the Israel Defense Forces. Givati soldiers are designated by purple berets....
209th Artillery Regiment "Amud ha-Esh"/"Pillar of Fire"
10th (Reserve) Armor Brigade "Har'el"

Gaza Division
Gaza Division

The Israel Defense Forces Gaza Division , is subordinate to the Israeli Southern Command. Its area of operation is the Gaza Strip and the area surrounding it....
(Territorial)

Gefen Territorial Brigade (south)
Katif Territorial Brigade (north)

80th "Edom" Division
80th Division (IDF)

The Israel Defense Forces 80th "Edom" Division , is subordinate to the Israeli Southern Command....
(Territorial)

Arava Territorial Brigade (east)
Sagi Territorial Brigade (west)
7489 (Reserve) Artillery Regiment "Shaham"

Two Reserve Armor Divisions, including 252nd 'Sinai' Armd Div
5005th "South West" & 5006th "South" Logistic Support Unit (Reserve)
Southern Command Signal Battalion
"Nesher"/"Eagle" Field Intelligence
Israeli Field Intelligence Corps

The Israeli Field Intelligence Corps is the newest of the Israel Defense Forces GOC Army Headquarters? five corps, created in April 2000, and is tasked with collecting combat Intelligence ....
Battalion
Engineer & Construction Battalion
"Rotem" Eilat Area (Res)Counter Terrorism Unit