Ram Rothberg

Rothberg was born in Kfar Hess and grew up in the Lev HaSharon Regional Council.[1] He enlisted in Shayetet 13 in 1982; his training coincided with the First Lebanon War, during which he distinguished himself, attended officer training, and returned to the unit to command a team of fighters.[1] His subsequent years in Shayetet 13 included participation in dozens of covert operations, some of which remained classified.[1]

A Mako profile reported that Rothberg was probably among operatives involved in a February 1988 operation in Limassol, Cyprus, carried out under then-officer Yoav Gallant, though the article explicitly noted there was no official confirmation of his involvement.[1]

In 1992, during the later stages of the First Intifada, Rothberg was appointed to command the Duvdevan unit, an undercover force.[5][1] He was tasked with rebuilding it after its previous commander was dismissed following the death of a soldier, Eli Isha, from friendly fire.[1] He held that command until 1994; a notable episode of his tenure was the capture alive of a wanted man known as the Black Panther, who was subsequently imprisoned.[1]

After leaving Duvdevan, Rothberg returned to the Navy, completed naval officers' training, and served in several roles aboard Navy vessels, including command of a vessel.[1]

Rothberg returned to Shayetet 13 in 1997 as commander of a combat section, shortly after a unit disaster in which his close friend Yossi Korakin was killed.[1] He progressed to deputy commander and was appointed the unit's commander in 2001.[5][1]

During the Second Intifada, he directed Shayetet 13 to operate in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — alongside Shin Bet operational units, developing what an ICT study described as capabilities built on intelligence and targeted action.[5][1] Operations included the killing and arrest of wanted individuals and the uncovering of terrorist infrastructure.[1] Six Shayetet 13 fighters were killed and others wounded during this period.[1] In a 2014 interview, Rothberg recalled the dramatic change in operational tempo, contrasting 24 operations over two years during the Lebanon period with 24 operations in a single month at the height of the Second Intifada.[5]

The most prominent operation of his command came on January 3, 2002, when he led the seizure of the arms ship Karin A in the operation known as Noah's Ark.[4] Fighters descended from helicopters while others boarded from boats; when initial searches suggested the ship was empty, Rothberg kept the force searching until a crate was opened revealing LAW missiles, eventually uncovering a reported 50 tons of weapons.[4]

After commanding Shayetet 13, Rothberg served as head of Naval Intelligence.[4] During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, he was involved in planning Navy operations off Beirut when a Hezbollah anti-ship missile struck INS Hanit, killing four sailors.[4] The operation had been conducted without activating the ship's defensive systems.[4]

Rothberg was reprimanded by Chief of Staff Dan Halutz for his part in the incident, and accounts indicate that he accepted responsibility.[4][6] He subsequently served as commander of Haifa Naval Base before being promoted to brigadier general.[6]

Rothberg became Commander of the Israeli Navy in October 2011, replacing Eliezer Marom, after Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the appointment decided by Chief of Staff Benny Gantz.[6][1] He served until the end of September 2016, when Eliyahu (Eli) Sharvit succeeded him.[2][7]

During his tenure, Rothberg oversaw a substantial expansion of submarine operational activity. A senior officer reported that 58 percent of submarine squadron sea hours in 2013 were operational, compared with 36 percent in the preceding three years, and that 54 special operations were launched from the Haifa Navy base in 2013 alone — some lasting weeks and covering thousands of kilometers.[8] Two submarines, INS Rahav and INS Tanin, arrived from Germany under his command.[2] When Israel's fourth submarine, INS Tanin, departed Germany in 2014, Rothberg described it as able to "dive deeper, go farther for a longer time and can operate at a level we have not seen until today."[9]

Rothberg also championed a shift toward joint operations across the IDF services. He described overcoming an earlier institutional reluctance within the Navy to cooperate closely with the Air Force and ground forces, saying the Navy had changed course and built direct working relationships with ground-force commanders.[2] A landmark exercise during his tenure saw a submarine covertly support a Paratroopers Brigade ground maneuver near Jisr az-Zarqa, with the submarine providing an evolving intelligence picture and helping open the route.[2] He also described establishing a naval coordination mechanism with Russia in the eastern Mediterranean, parallel to the Air Force's own mechanism.[2]

In the same interview, Rothberg said the Navy could intercept the Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missile with Barak 1 and, in the future, Barak 8. He added that the preferred approach would be to strike missile launchers before they fired.[2]

During the 2014 Gaza war, Rothberg commanded the Navy's Operation Hod ve-Hadar from the Ashdod base, directing fire and intelligence and coordinating forces while the Shayetet 13 commander led in the field.[2] He characterized the operation as having achieved its objectives.[2] He also commanded from the sea the interception of the Klos-C arms ship, describing it as a distinctive operation against maritime smuggling.[2]

In 2015, responding to a letter from the wife of a sailor killed when INS Dakar sank in 1968, Rothberg ordered the Navy to compile and release to bereaved families all known information about the submarine's fate.[10] The release offered unprecedented access to materials but no new conclusion on cause. Rothberg stated that investigators' leading explanations were catastrophic technical or professional failure, or the snorkel being struck by a vessel during a storm, and that a deliberate attack had been ruled out.[10]

Also in August 2015, Rothberg visited India as part of reciprocal senior defense-official visits intended for consultations and mutual understanding, with Israel's Ministry of Defense expressing hope that both countries would reap strategic benefits through India's Make in India program.[11]

After retiring from the IDF, Rothberg founded the nonprofit "Sailing to the Horizon" and the "Masa El HaOfek" programs, both designed to support discharged IDF and national-service veterans.[3] At the time of a 2014 profile, he was married to Michal, was the father of three, and had lived for approximately 20 years in a northern moshav, where he kept horses and goats.[4] Examples cited of his informal, people-focused leadership included holding individual conversations with young sailors during the return voyage after the Klos-C operation and joining sailors on a march.[4]

Rothberg became a subject of a State Commission of Inquiry investigating naval-vessel procurement. In June 2024 the commission sent him a warning notice — a preliminary procedural step, not a final finding — stating that its conclusions might adversely affect him.[12] The commission indicated it might find that he allowed the National Security Council to influence professional Navy opinions, worked with political officials to advance procurement while bypassing established IDF and Defense Ministry procedures, and provided the commission with inaccurate information concerning Sa'ar 6 corvettes, anti-submarine ships, and his NSC contacts.[13]

Detailed warning material published in 2024 further alleged that Rothberg misrepresented operational requirements and vessel specifications, concealed costs, circulated tendentious documents, bypassed the chain of command, and maintained procurement-related contacts with the NSC and the ThyssenKrupp shipyard without properly informing the defense establishment.[13] By September 28, 2026, the inquiry was approaching its final stage, and Rothberg was identified as one of four officials, besides the prime minister, who had received interim warnings. The report did not state that a final personal-responsibility finding had been issued against him.[14] All characterizations from the commission's warning notices should be understood as preliminary allegations pending the inquiry's conclusion.