After fourteen months of fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, the Israeli Army’s Ground Forces Command on Thursday outlined a series of changes designed to address current and future challenges, ranging from increasing Army Corps troops Military Engineering granting greater independence to those of the Infantry Corps.
During the war, senior IDF officials repeatedly said the army needed to increase its troop levels, without ever specifying where.
According to the Land Forces Command, the top priority is the creation of a new battalion of the Military Engineering Corps of the standing army. Currently, the IDF only has four of these battalions in the standing army, but there are more than a dozen among the reserves.
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The Army Corps of Engineers carried out intensive operations during the war, demolishing hundreds of kilometers of Hamas tunnels and other infrastructure belonging to the Palestinian terrorist group in the Gaza Strip, as well as facilities of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli Army Corps of Engineers soldiers working to uncover a Hamas tunnel in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, in a press photo published on April 29, 2024. (Israeli Army)
Their intense activity during the conflict led senior officers to realize the need for a greater number of combat engineers within the standing army.
In the same spirit, the Land Forces Command also plans to increase the size of the elite unit of the Yahalom Military Engineering Corps, called upon tirelessly during the conflict for special operations in the tunnels of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
In addition to the new Military Engineer Corps battalion and the expansion of the Yahalom unit, the Land Forces Command will also begin training Infantry Corps soldiers to perform simple explosives-related tasks, to relieve the Corps of Military Engineers.
The Ground Forces Command is also seeking to train all IDF infantry units in the use of armored vehicles so that they become mechanized infantry brigades. Currently, only the Givati and Golani Brigades are considered brigades of the Mechanized Infantry Corps, while the Nahal Brigade is in the process of acquiring more advanced armored personnel carriers (APCs).
An Israeli armored personnel carrier (APC) moves near the border of the Gaza Strip, southern Israel, February 29, 2024. (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)
During the war, Infantry Corps units largely lacked their own mobile units. This is why the ground forces also plan to provide them with Humvees and light armored vehicles, in addition to APCs.
Regarding women in the ground forces, the IDF said that as of 2023, approximately 7,000 female soldiers have served in combat roles, and some 1,600 new female fighters are enlisted each year. In recent years, the army has opened new combat units to young women who wish to enlist.
-A pilot program for the Yahalom unit, which has an operational women’s team and a team in training, will end in July 2025. Another pilot program allowing women to serve in the Infantry Corps’ mobility units began in November , and a similar program for the Mechanized Armored Corps is planned for November 2025.
The Land Forces Command is also working to move the command centers of the Intelligence Gathering Corps away from the country’s borders and to provide weapons to the soldiers responsible for surveillance – or inspection.
Israeli soldiers supervise surveillance cameras in a command center at the Kibbutz Reim military base in southern Israel, November 5, 2023. (Israeli Army)
THE auditwere positioned near Israel’s borders with the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. On October 7, 2023, the Nahal Oz base near Gaza, where one of these command centers is located, was invaded by terrorists who killed and kidnapped more than twenty female surveillance soldiers. The female soldiers, with the exception of the commanders, were mostly unarmed.
The Land Forces Command declared that all audit will be armed in the coming months and that all command centers will be moved outside the borders in the coming years.
Land Forces Command seeks to equip all reservist units in the same manner as the standing army. Many reserve brigades of the Armored Mechanized Corps use old Merkava tanks which are not equipped with active defense systems. These tanks will be upgraded to be equipped with more advanced systems, including active defenses found on the newest models.
The Ground Forces Command is also establishing two new divisions and a new brigade for ultra-Orthodox soldiers – or Haredim.
An Israeli tank overlooking the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, May 6, 2024. (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)
The Eastern Division will be assigned to Israel’s border with Jordan.
The second, known as the 96th Division, will be a light infantry force composed of volunteer reservists tasked with providing security and patrolling in times of tension throughout the country.
At the same time, the new brigade haredi of the army, the Hasmonean Brigade, will welcome its first company of ultra-Orthodox soldiers later this month.
