Eyal Eisenberg

Eisenberg's early command positions included Shaldag, followed by the Givati Brigade and the Fire Formation. A January 2008 profile reported that he was expected to take command of the Gaza Division that summer; by 2011, he was serving as the division's commander.[3][1]

In a later interview, Eisenberg recounted leading the IDF response on May 11, 2004, in Gaza's Zaytun neighborhood, after an armored personnel carrier was destroyed by a large explosive charge that killed all six soldiers aboard. He said the Givati Brigade searched the area to collect the soldiers' remains; DNA identification was obtained for all six, and they were returned for burial in Israel.[4]

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Eisenberg commanded a division that lost nine soldiers in the village of Dabel when two Kornet missiles struck, the second hitting the medical team treating casualties from the first. Faced with the critical wounding of a soldier named Ben Sela, Eisenberg ordered an evacuation on foot because bringing in a vehicle or helicopter was judged too dangerous. The evacuation took three hours, and Sela died near the Israeli border. Eisenberg later said, "That was my decision, and I bear responsibility for it," and described continuing to visit Sela's grave and family.[4]

Eisenberg separately recalled an 18-hour effort to arrange a helicopter evacuation for another severely wounded soldier during the war. He said the measure of such an operation was whether the soldier was actually rescued, rather than whether a rescue had merely been attempted.[4]

As commander of the Gaza Division, Eisenberg led eight brigades during Operation Cast Lead.[4] In his account, both that operation and the Second Lebanon War involved "the same army, with the same means and the same fighters," but Cast Lead was distinguished by clearer missions and orders and by commanders leading from the front.[4]

In 2011, Eisenberg was promoted from brigadier general to major general and appointed chief of the Home Front Command, succeeding Yair Golan.[1] He served in the post for four years and left the IDF in 2015 after 34 years in uniform.[4][2]

Shortly after taking command, Eisenberg delivered a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv in September 2011. He warned that regional developments were increasing the long-term likelihood of all-out war, described the Arab Spring as a possible "radical Islamic winter," and raised the prospect of a total war involving weapons of mass destruction.[5] His comments about Iran, Egypt and Sinai, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey were presented as his threat assessments rather than independently established conclusions.[5]

At the same event, Eisenberg said a new weapon had been discovered among Palestinian terrorist organizations in Gaza, leading authorities to instruct civilians to shelter under two roofs rather than one; he did not identify the weapon.[5] He also stated that one-quarter of Israel's local authorities were not prepared for emergencies and criticized local authorities for withholding preparedness information from the public.[5]

During his four-year tenure, the Home Front Command dealt with eight escalation events, five weather emergencies, three overseas aid and rescue delegations, and four peacetime emergencies involving civilian deaths.[4]

In May 2015, Eisenberg was reported to be among the senior generals leaving the IDF, concluding his tenure at the Home Front Command.[2]

Eisenberg's public account of his Home Front Command tenure emphasized civilian resilience as a strategic component of modern warfare. He expanded the command's involvement in civilian events affecting 50,000 or more people and worked to train local authorities for emergency response.[4]

Discussing Operation Protective Edge in his 2015 departure interview, Eisenberg said the civilian rear was under fire for 50 days and that 70 percent of what was launched was intercepted. He argued that the endurance of the home front could affect a campaign's outcome and set a goal of "one Israeli civilian killed for every 10,000 rockets."[4]

He also recounted an episode in which soldiers shielded a child named Yair during an air-raid alarm. Eisenberg said a commander could have no greater expectation than to see soldiers place themselves between a threat and a civilian.[4]

Eisenberg's accounts of the Zaytun response, the Dabel incident, and Operation Cast Lead concern military operations involving fatalities. The available interview presents these episodes primarily through his retrospective account, including his acceptance of responsibility for the decision to evacuate Ben Sela on foot.[4]

His 2011 INSS statements were contemporaneous threat assessments. Ynet reported his claims concerning weapons held by terrorist organizations in Gaza and the preparedness of Israeli local authorities as statements from his speech, without independently establishing them.[5]