91st Division (Israel)

The 91st Division is a territorial division of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), with responsibility for the Lebanon frontier and the defense of the Galilee. In May 2024, it was described alongside the 210th Division, deployed in the Golan, as one of two territorial divisions in northern Israel.[3] The division is also called the Galilee Formation (Ugdat HaGalil) and the “Galilee” Regional Division.[1][2]

A 2011 account placed the division’s headquarters at Biranit and described its area of responsibility along the Lebanon sector as extending from Rosh HaNikra to Mount Hermon. It identified the 300th Baram Regional Brigade in the west and the 769th Hiram Regional Brigade in the east as components of the formation.[1] In accounts from 2024, the 91st was described as normally responsible for the Lebanon border area, with the 769th Brigade assigned to its eastern portion.[2]

The 769th and 300th territorial brigades have distinct border sectors: the 769th controls the eastern sector, while the 300th is responsible for the western sector.[8] A 2025 reorganization restored responsibility for most of the Lebanon frontier to the 91st after the 146th Reserve Division had held the western sector. Under the reported arrangement, the 91st covered the border from Rosh Hanikra toward Mount Dov, excluding the Mount Dov sector, which remained with the 210th Division.[9][10]

The May 2025 reorganization also envisaged a third regional brigade for the central sector, alongside the 300th in the west and 769th in the east. At the time of reporting, the new brigade was unnamed and was being staffed by the 8th Reserve Armored Brigade. The division was also incorporating the revived 946th Air Defense Battalion, which operates anti-drone systems.[9]

The available sources document the division’s modern operational history from at least the 2006 Lebanon War, a 34-day campaign that ran from July 12 to August 14. As the initial Israeli military response unfolded, division units began firing artillery at Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon that Northern Command had selected in advance.[6] The division’s commander was Brigadier General Gal Hirsch, and the division bore much of the ground fighting as Israeli tank and infantry operations expanded.[6]

Combat included house-to-house fighting and particularly stiff resistance around Bint J’beil, about two miles inside Lebanon, on July 24. Hirsch described it as “a full-contact operation” involving direct, face-to-face fighting between soldiers.[6] A RAND monograph also described short-range Katyusha rockets in southern Lebanon as part of Northern Command’s mission tasking, specifically the 91st Division’s, rather than the Israeli Air Force’s. The Air Force supported Northern Command’s operations south of the Litani River.[6]

The division’s later activity included the Northern Shield operation, which sought to locate Hezbollah cross-border tunnels. Division commander Brigadier General Rafi Milo took command in 2017 and led the operation. The first tunnel was located opposite Metula in December 2018; more were subsequently found, including a tunnel linking the area of Ramyeh in southern Lebanon to the area of Zar’it. The latter reached a depth of 55 meters and was neutralized at the end of May 2019.[7] A 2019 report said six tunnels had been found and described the effort as removing a component of Hezbollah’s attack plan, attributing that assessment to the Israeli military.[11]

In April 2024, the division completed a large-scale exercise designed to prepare for scenarios that could develop into a future war. The exercise involved Israeli police, search-and-rescue forces, the Israeli Air Force, regional defense officers, civilian rapid-response teams, and the division’s armored, engineering, and brigade units. Scenarios included the terrain and weather of northern Israel and mass-casualty events. The stated objectives were readiness to defend the Upper Galilee and the ability to conduct an offensive in Lebanon.[12]

After division commander Shai Klepper described the exercise as part of writing “a chapter in the history of the Galilee,” he said the forces were determined and ready to win.[12] The exercise took place amid heightened concern about possible escalation on the northern border.[3][12]

After nearly a year of defending the border while other divisions operated against Hamas in Gaza, the 91st Division began ground activity in southern Lebanon in early October 2024.[2] Reports identify October 6 or October 7 as the start of the operation, which the IDF described as localized, targeted, focused, and limited.[4][13] Reserve forces included the Alexandroni (3rd), 8th, and Northern Nahal (228th) brigades.[13] The 769th Brigade continued defending the eastern border sector while other forces entered Lebanon.[2][13]

The division’s first reported offensive operation was in Meiss El Jabal, where the 3rd, 8th, and 228th brigades surrounded Hezbollah fighters.[14] During October, the IDF said division forces combined defensive activity with air and ground actions against Hezbollah and its infrastructure. The military attributed hundreds of strikes and the deaths of dozens of terrorists in the preceding weeks to division forces.[13]

In October, reports described troops raiding underground shafts and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. The IDF said a site beneath civilian homes contained living quarters, equipment, and weapons, and was intended for Hezbollah’s Radwan Force as part of a plan it called “Conquest of the Galilee.” The military said troops destroyed the infrastructure.[5] These details, including the stated purpose of the site, were reported as IDF claims rather than independently verified findings.[5]

By November, division troops had reached the Litani River in eastern southern Lebanon and the Wadi Saluki area. Reports described raids in Wadi Saluki, about 10 kilometers from Israel’s border, and operations near the Litani about four kilometers from Metula. The IDF said troops found weapons, bunkers, and rocket launchers and destroyed weapons and launch sites.[15] In December, the division was reported to be maneuvering in several locations in eastern southern Lebanon with at least eight armored, artillery, and infantry formations. The stated aim was to move Hezbollah threats away from the border and enable northern Israeli residents to return home.[16]

The 769th Brigade, which had spent much of the year defending the border, cleared areas between the border and the Litani after ground operations began. In late December, it operated with the Golani Brigade in the Wadi Saluki area and found a concealed weapons-storage facility, according to the IDF.[8] Another account described forces under the division’s command searching complex terrain under the “Cedar Plan” and finding a weapons warehouse containing launchers, missiles, and explosive devices, along with caches in nearby buildings. The report said the facilities and weapons were destroyed.[17]

By December 15, 2024, the IDF said division troops in several sectors of southern Lebanon had destroyed more than 10,000 weapons and items of military equipment, struck more than 1,000 Hezbollah targets, and destroyed several above- and below-ground military installations.[17] The figures were relayed from an IDF announcement and were not independently established in the report. After the ceasefire, the division’s commander, Brigadier General Shai Klepper, said forces remained deployed in more than 10 locations in southern Lebanon; the IDF attributed similar totals for weapons, targets, and structures to its own reporting.[14]

In January 2026, the IDF said the division was working with Military Intelligence and the Israeli Air Force to disrupt the activities of Hezbollah village liaison officers in southern Lebanon. The IDF claimed that ten such officers had been killed in recent months, although the report’s review and accompanying video showed different totals.[18] A March 2026 FDD brief described a raid in eastern southern Lebanon on March 14 in which troops encountered and killed several Hezbollah operatives, according to the military. That brief called the force the “91st Galilee Regional Brigade,” while other reports identify the formation as a division.[19]

As Northern Command’s territorial formation for the Lebanon frontier, the 91st Division links standing border-defense responsibilities with the ability to direct reserve, armored, engineering, artillery, air-defense, and infantry forces in wartime.[3][9] Its eastern and western regional brigades provide enduring sector commands along the frontier, while the 2025 reorganization planned a third brigade for the central sector.[8][10]

The division’s operational record reflects that combined role. It bore a substantial share of the ground fighting in the 2006 Lebanon War,[6] led the Northern Shield tunnel-detection operation,[7] and shifted from nearly a year of border defense to ground activity in southern Lebanon in October 2024.[4] These episodes illustrate its continuing importance to both routine security in the Galilee and Israel’s wider operations against threats from Lebanon.

Several senior officers later held prominent IDF command roles after serving with the 91st Division. Yair Golan’s biography lists the 91st among his IDF command positions, before his later commands of the Judea and Samaria Division, Home Front Command from 2008 to 2011, and Northern Command from 2011 to 2014; it does not date his service with the 91st.[20] Herzl “Herzi” Halevi’s biography also records that he later commanded the division, after his selection to lead the IDF Staff and Command College in 2013, without giving dates for the divisional command.[21]

Staff Sergeant Omer Sarah Benjo, a member of the 869th Field Intelligence Battalion of the 91st Division, was killed at her base in northern Israel on February 14, 2024, by a rocket launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon. The 869th is identified as part of the Border Protection Corps.[22] Staff Sergeant Or Demry and Sergeant First Class Maher Khatar, both identified as members of the division’s Combat Engineering Corps, were killed in battle in southern Lebanon on March 8, 2026.[22]

An interim inquiry into the 91st Division’s performance during the 2006 Lebanon War identified unclear mission objectives, frequent changes that left units insufficient time to prepare, inconsistent management of ground operations, and logistical shortcomings. It also noted determination among battalions and companies and favorable outcomes for Israeli forces in direct encounters with Hezbollah. At the time the findings were reported, the inquiry had not been finally approved by the chief of staff and did not recommend personal measures against senior division commanders.[23]

The same campaign’s reported Hezbollah fatality totals remain attributed claims rather than a reconciled count. A RAND monograph cited an IDF estimate of around 600 trained Hezbollah combatants killed, while Hirsch said that, among more than 600 Hezbollah fighters killed by Israeli fire, 484 were confirmed killed by 91st Division troops.[6] Hirsch submitted his resignation in November 2006 amid the conclusions of an inquiry into the abduction of Israeli soldiers that led to the war. He disputed the conduct and character of the postwar examinations, alleging that he and his family had been subjected to public attacks during the fighting and its aftermath.[24]

The RAND account also described an intelligence-access problem: the division’s intelligence officer could read a highly classified, 130-page January 2006 assessment of Hezbollah’s war preparations, but Hirsch could not. The author presented this as an example of compartmentalization that could keep tactical information from commanders.[6] More recent operational reports likewise include figures and descriptions attributed to the IDF, including claims about Hezbollah infrastructure, weapons, and the effects of division operations; these reports do not independently verify every military claim.[5][17]