Sublime

SAYERET MATKAL In 1957, Avraham Arnan, an unorthodox and entrepreneurial officer of the HUMINT unit of the Intelligence Corps, established a new unit subordinated directly to the head of AMAN. Designated Unit 269, the innovative new group was Sayeret Matkal, the GHQ Reconnaissance Unit. The personnel of this unit consisted of first-rate warriors,

This specialist unit, under the command of Avraham Arnan, was subordinated to the director of AMAN and evolved, after a few years, into the elite unit known as Sayeret Matkal.

In the last few decades, Sayeret Matkal, along with the operational technology intelligence unit, belong to the special operations organ (MEM-MEM) within the IDF Intelligence Directorate.

Its fighters were Mistaravim who would work undercover, generally posing as Arabs, deep inside Palestinian territory, and hit the people on the wanted list. The nucleus of Duvdevan comprised graduates of elite IDF units, particularly the naval commandos.

Back in 1986, Major General Ehud Barak, then the head of the IDF Central Command, together with the head of the operations department of the General Staff, Major General Meir Dagan, set up a highly secretive unit, Duvdevan (Hebrew for “Cherry”), to combat terrorists in the West Bank. The unit was now put into action.

None of us had trained on them. But many of the air marshals on board all El Al flights were Sayeret

Dagan was assigned to the paratroopers and served in the brigade recon unit. He underwent an infantry officer’s course and was discharged with the rank of lieutenant in 1966. In the Six-Day War, he was called up for reserve duty and served as the commander of a paratroop company. He fought first in Sinai and then on the Golan Heights. “Suddenly we

Dagan dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen and enlisted in Sayeret Matkal, the elite force that carried out secret missions over enemy lines (and was also the forge from which many of Israel’s later military and civilian leaders emerged). Of the thirty IDF recruits who volunteered for Sayeret Matkal in August 1963, only fourteen