Major General (reserve) Eyal Zamir has been designated to replace Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz announced on Saturday night.
Zamir, 59, is the current director general of Israel’s Defence Ministry and will assume his new post on March 6.
He has previously served as deputy chief of staff (2018 to 2021), and before that, he led the Southern Command from 2015 to 2018.
During that time, he helped formulate war plans focused on Hamas and contemplated scenarios in which the terrorist faction might be replaced in Gaza.
He will be the first IDF chief to originate from the Armoured Corps since David (Dado) Elazar in the 1970s.
While at the helm of the Defence Ministry, Zamir has spearheaded efforts over the past year to greatly ramp up domestic weapons production to reduce reliance on imports, working with local defence companies to do this.
Halevi announced his resignation from the role earlier this month.
He said his decision to resign stemmed from his "responsibility for the IDF's failure" during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, cross-border massacre, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
With his resignation, he will become the shortest-serving permanent IDF chief of staff since Dan Halutz, who stepped down from the role after just 20 months following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.
