146th Division (Israel)

The 146th Division serves as a maneuvering reserve formation within Northern Command, alongside the regular 36th Division.[1] Its recent employment has included both a regional defensive role and offensive operations: before entering Lebanon in October 2024, its headquarters had spent approximately a year directing defensive activity along Israel’s northwestern border.[4]

The division’s assignments have not been confined to a single theater: during the war that began in October 2023, its forces served in northern Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[4] In the northern sector, it concentrated defensive and offensive efforts against Hezbollah’s Radwan force.[5] Its operations brought together infantry, armor, artillery, naval support, aviation, and intelligence-gathering capabilities.[6][7]

The division’s lineage includes the historical 38th Division, which fought in the 1956 Sinai Campaign and the 1967 Six-Day War and was later incorporated into what became the 146th Reserve Division.[8] Ariel Sharon commanded the historical 38th Division in the Six-Day War; its number was subsequently selected for a new division in honor of that earlier formation.[9]

Moshe, or Musa, Peled commanded the 146th Armored Division from 1972 to 1974.[10] At the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, it was subordinate to Central Command while serving as a General Staff reserve, and it was the General Staff’s only armored reserve division.[10][2] Concern that the Golan Heights might fall prompted its dispatch to the Syrian front.[10]

The division joined the fighting on October 7, 1973, helping block the Syrian advance and enabling an Israeli counteroffensive on October 8.[2] Under Peled, it led a counterattack in the southern Golan Heights, helped eliminate Syrian forces in the Hushniya pocket, and pushed them beyond the Purple Line.[10] It subsequently fought to defend the Israeli-held enclave in Syria against Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian forces.[10]

At the end of the war, the division moved to Sinai, where it reinforced Southern Command pending implementation of the disengagement agreement with Egypt.[10]

A 2024 organizational account listed three reserve infantry brigades within the division: the 226th Paratroopers Brigade, the 228th Nahal Brigade, and the Carmeli Brigade, whose members were described as veterans of the Golani Brigade.[1] Its armored component included the Kiryati Brigade, numbered 4, and the Iron Fist Brigade, numbered 205; the 213th formation provided reserve artillery.[1]

Other operational accounts identified the 300th and 646th brigades among the division’s forces.[11] The 300th, also called the Baram Regional Brigade, held territorial responsibility for the western section of the border with Lebanon, extending inland from the Mediterranean toward the Galilean hills.[12][13] During operations in 2026, the division also directed brigade combat teams numbered 226, 401, and 300.[7]

Brigadier General Yisrael Shomer commanded the division on October 7, 2023, when he was also a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza.[14] As the attack began, he set out to defend his home armed with a knife and telephoned the IDF chief of staff to report what he was seeing.[14] By June 2024, Shomer had completed his tenure; Brigadier General Amit Fisher was serving as interim commander, and Yiftah Norkin had been selected to take command after completing his studies.[1] Norkin held the command by November 28, 2024.[12]

In September 2025, Brigadier General Benny Aharon was identified as the incoming commander, replacing Norkin after approximately a year in the post.[15] Norkin was slated to command the 36th Division, while Aharon marked his assumption of command by recalling 57 soldiers of the 401st Brigade combat team who had fallen under his command.[15]

All of the division’s reserve forces were mobilized on October 7, 2023.[1] Most subsequently fought in Gaza, while the 226th Brigade remained on the Lebanon border and fought Hezbollah, apart from short periods of leave at home.[1] A military account dated the division’s deployment to the northern sector to October 10, 2023, and described an assignment lasting approximately 20 months.[16]

By April 2024, the division was conducting a major readiness exercise involving the navy, air force, police, and search-and-rescue services.[3][17] Training covered regional defense, coordination between naval and ground forces, and evacuation of wounded personnel under fire.[17] Helicopters and naval units based in Haifa participated, while scenarios included threats in the northern maritime arena and cooperation with civilian local authorities.[17]

Further divisional and brigade exercises in the weeks before June 4, 2024, simulated maneuver in Lebanon.[18] The 205th Armored Brigade participated in training that covered northern-front combat scenarios, rapid deployment, the operation of divisional and brigade headquarters, and preparation for an offensive.[18] Training in April and May likewise rehearsed offensive operations against Hezbollah before the division’s subsequent entry into Lebanon.[19]

The division’s October 2024 entry into southwestern Lebanon marked a transition from its prolonged border-defense assignment to ground maneuver.[4] Operations began on October 7 and were publicly announced on October 8 as limited, localized, and targeted activity against Hezbollah targets and infrastructure.[20][4] It was the first reserve division to enter southern Lebanon during that campaign, with approximately half of its brigades participating in the initial entry.[20]

The Carmeli Brigade, numbered 2, and the 205th Iron Fist Brigade took part, supported by the 213th Artillery formation and other forces.[20] Initial activity extended only a few kilometers into Lebanon.[20] Troops encountered rugged, mountainous terrain containing underground combat facilities, tunnels, and fortified Hezbollah positions.[11]

During Operation Northern Arrows, the division coordinated strikes on Hezbollah targets with the Israeli Navy.[6] The supporting naval effort included vessels, intelligence and command posts, and fire-control capabilities associated with the Haifa Naval Region.[6] A later military account described maneuver in Labouna, the Sunni valley, Jabal Blat, and Marwahin, alongside terrain-clearing activity, air and artillery strikes, and naval cooperation.[16]

For the week preceding October 13, 2024, military operational figures credited the division with killing more than 100 Hezbollah terrorists and destroying dozens of tunnel shafts and infrastructure sites, more than 50 rocket launchers, and over 60 command posts.[21] One underground facility, found by the 205th Brigade approximately half a kilometer from the Israeli border, was about 120 meters long and two meters deep, with electricity, ventilation, and two rooms for weapons and ammunition.[21] It had been located months earlier and was destroyed during the October operations.[21]

An October 25 operational report credited division troops with attacking more than 50 military buildings and terrorist infrastructure sites, together with an anti-tank missile position.[22] The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon began on November 27, 2024; the initial withdrawal plan envisaged units leaving southern Lebanese villages over the following two months.[12] Norkin met Northern Command chief Ori Gordin and other officers in Lebanon on November 28.[12]

In December, troops of the 226th Paratroopers Brigade operated in Naqoura, the westernmost village in southern Lebanon.[23] A military account published on December 27 reported dozens of Hezbollah infrastructure sites and weapons in civilian buildings, including a pharmacy, with explosives, AK-47 rifles, RPGs, Burkan missiles, mortars, and mortar bombs among the finds.[23] The operation was presented as taking place within the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.[23]

On January 8, 2025, an operational account credited the 300th Brigade with destroying five weapons depots during a day of activity in southern Lebanon.[13] Reported finds included more than 200 mortars, combat vests, loaded rocket launchers, and a launcher concealed in the ground.[13] Troops also seized a truck carrying three medium-range rocket launchers hidden in a mountainous area; these operations, too, were presented as consistent with the ceasefire understandings.[13]

In May 2025, the division transferred the western Galilee defensive mission back to the 91st Division and left the northern border sector.[24] Its headquarters returned to readiness for future missions as a General Staff reserve.[24] The 91st resumed responsibility for the frontier from Rosh Hanikra to just short of Mount Dov, while troop numbers remained approximately three times the prewar level rather than falling with the 146th’s demobilization.[25]

In March 2026, the division returned to the western portion of the Lebanon border for defensive missions intended to strengthen northern-sector readiness.[26] The redeployment followed its previous assignment in that area from October 2023 until May 2025.[26][24] A March 4 account linked the return to increased tensions with Hezbollah and preparation for a possible maneuver.[26]

By March 15, the division was responsible for the sector from Rosh Hanikra to Mattat, with the 300th and 226th brigades deployed for defense.[27] The same operational account described cross-border raids, cooperation with the air force and intelligence-gathering units, dozens of terrorists killed by the 213th Artillery Brigade, and hundreds of targets struck from the air.[27]

By May 5, division forces were operating in southern Lebanon with the 226th, 401st, and 300th brigade combat teams.[7] The 226th reached Ras al-Bayada, approximately 10 kilometers from the border, in a rapid nighttime movement.[7] Operations combined infantry, armor, artillery, aircraft, and drones; the military’s reported tally at that stage was 370 Hezbollah terrorists killed with battle-damage assessment confirmation, including approximately 100 credited to the 226th Brigade.[7]

On June 1, 2026, an announcement described the completion of three months of activity in southern Lebanon and the division’s planned return to Israel.[28] The military’s cumulative figures for that period were more than 550 terrorists killed and over 2,700 Hezbollah infrastructure sites dismantled.[28] These included more than 200 weapons-storage facilities destroyed with air-force assistance and dozens of underground routes destroyed with the Yahalom engineering unit.[28]

The division’s service links the General Staff armored reserve role of the Yom Kippur War with the combined defensive and maneuver responsibilities of a modern Northern Command reserve formation.[10][1] Its 1973 counterattack helped reverse the course of fighting in the southern Golan, while its recent northern assignments have required cooperation with naval, air, police, rescue, and civilian authorities.[10][17]

A Hebrew-language book titled עוצמת המפץ, roughly “The Strength of the Blast,” covers Division 146 in the Iron Swords war and Operation Northern Arrows during 2023–2025.[29] Its subtitle presents the work as a true story of resilience, faith, sacrifice, and victory; the cataloged volume is available only within the National Library building.[29]

Assessments of the division’s impact include the characterization of its 1973 arrival on the Golan as a decisive factor in Israel’s favor and Norkin’s September 2025 description of the Lebanon maneuver as having “in practice defeated Hezbollah.”[2][15] The latter is a commander’s assessment rather than an independently established conclusion.[15]

The Lebanon casualty totals, weapons discoveries, and destruction figures cited here derive largely from military operational accounts relayed in news reporting, rather than independent verification of every claim.[21][28] They refer to different dates and reporting periods and should not be added together as a single campaign total.[7][28]