Shay Avital
Shay Avital | |
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Major General | |
Commands held | |
Battles/wars |
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Other work | Former Director General of the Israeli Ministry of the Environment |
Shay Avital Rapoport (Hebrew: שי אביטל; born in 1952) is a Major General (Ret.) in the IDF and former head of the Special Operations Forces Command (Depth Corps).
During his military career Avital was, among others, Commander of Sayeret Matkal, the 36th Armored Division and the Northern Corpus.
Military service
Avital
During the
Avital has testified that it had been a tough battle; one which included close range gunfire and grenade launches, and was ultimately determined due to the confidence and personal example demonstrated by Netanyahu in battle. During the clash between the Matkal Unit and the Syrian commando, about forty Syrian fighters were killed and two Matkal fighters lost their lives. Avital also participated in the rescue operation in which the Matkal force, commanded by Netanyahu, rescued during the fighting, the wounded Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General)
In 1974 Avital participated in breaking into a residential unit in
In 1979 Avital returned to the Unit, filling a senior position. He participated in the takeover of the Infant day care during the
After a year of study at the
In 1994 Avital was appointed Commander of the
During the operation, which took place in the village Asira ash-Shamaliya, three of the unit's snipers mistakenly took their own team members who were lying on the roof in the area of operation to be terrorists and shot them dead. Following the operational failure it was decided to temporarily suspend the unit from operations and its Commander at the time - Mickey Edelstein resigned.
At the beginning of the
Avital served as a staff commanding officer in the Northern Command overseeing the operations of the Egoz Unit, Unit 504 and the Lebanon Liaison Unit among others. He is disabled and therefore requires a specially modified attachment to his rifle's rotating bolt in order to load it. He survived at least one life-threatening car accident in the late 1990s while in IDF service. He is considered one of the brightest and talented officers in the IDF and in its history. In 2002, Avital retired from the IDF.
Public life
Towards the seventeenth Knesset elections, Avital was placed 39th in the Kadima list, and was not elected to the Knesset. On July 19, 2006, he was appointed Director General of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and served in this capacity until that government's end of the term, in April 2009.
Back to service
In December 2011, the
In September 2014, Avital retired from the IDF.
Personal life
Avital was born and raised in
Notes
- The testimony of Shay Avital in the movie 'Yoni Netanyahu - the real story': "He was my first senior commander, to me, a company commander that was not only the commander, he also was an educator. He worked us hard. When you had to be tough he was tough. He demanded a lot from us. He was not an easy commander, but at the same time, for example before going on a difficult journey of sometimes 80 kilometers, carrying a weight of 15-20 kilos on our backs, Yoni would go from soldier to soldier and ask each one how he was, and most of the time the men quietly returned back in line. I mean he persuaded them not with orders but by putting a good word. It is the eve of Chanukah, we are tired, and Yoni sits with the company the whole evening telling us about Judas Maccabeus. He talked about the history of the Jews two thousand years ago. He connected the story of their actions with ours today. He finished his lecture and we continued to run on the trails into the night, until two - three in the morning, and of course the next day we slept three hours and continued our training at six in the morning. "
- Moshe Zonder, Sayeret Matkel, Keter Publishing House, 2000. The Shay Avital Period, pages 197–198.
- Testimony of the retired Major General Shay Avital on the battle against the Syrian commando, from the official site in memory of Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu.
- The DSO awarded to Jonathan Netanyahu, on the "Courage" website of the IDF Personnel Branch
- Moshe Zonder, Sayeret Matkel, Keter Publishing House, 2000. The Amiram Levine Period, page 201.
- Noam Tivon: "Only when I got to SO I found that in Shlom HaGalil we were at the centre of doings. As a soldier it did not really interest me. We fought against the Syrian commandos in Mioeret', we were in Ein a'-Tina, the breaking into Beirut, the funniest thing is that Avital, Commander of the Unit, put us young ones in the flanks so as not to endanger us and eventually we were the ones who were tackled. "Avihai Becker, Pleasant way, Haaretz newspaper, 5 May 2000.
- Moshe Zonder, The man who didn't say "After me", Nrg Maariv, 2 June 2000
- Omri Asnheim, Red Background, Nrg Maariv, April 15, 2005
- Shai Lahav, Surgical Unit, Nrg Maariv, May 1, 2003
- Avihai Becker, Who is general Yitzhak Eitan?, Haaretz newspaper, 17 November 2000
- Amir Oren, Today in Tel Aviv - strategic talks with the U.S., Walla! web site, November 15, 2001
- Anshel Pfeffer, Israel announces new 'depth' command for long-range military operations, Haaretz newspaper, 15 December 2011.