Page 124 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Fall 2014

An Ongoing Series

Special Forces Medicine in Israel

History and Future Directions

Ishay Ostfeld, MD; Haim Paran, MD; Jacob Chen, MD; Yotam Barneis;
Uriel Dreyfuss, MD; Hagai Kedem, MD; Elon Glassberg, MD

ABSTRACT
The Special Forces (SF) of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) have gained SF military experience while serving in different regu-
a long and pioneering history in tactical and medical aspects. lar allied forces. Subsequently, many of those Jewish veterans
Moreover, the importance of medical assistance is highly re- immigrated to Israel and, together with the local underground
garded in the Israeli SF community. Consequently, as current movements’ veterans, created the foundation for the mod-
military challenges of Israel increase, the need for SF activity ern IDF SF. The partisan appreciation for medical support
and for its medical support increases as well. Therefore, the later influenced nonregular and regular forces, worldwide.
7
authors anticipate that further development of SF medicine Concurrently, in Palestine, many of the early fighting Jewish
(SFM), as a specific branch of military medicine in Israel, will organizations considered medical aid to be of the highest im-
continue. portance and thus trained its activists in “first aid” and inte-
grated medics (women and men) in the fighting forces. More
8,9
Keywords: Special Forces, Special Forces medicine, military advanced medical and surgical treatment was usually provided
medicine, Israel Defense Force, My Brother’s Keeper by “trusted doctors” (Jewish physicians, who treated the
wounded mainly in “safe houses”). 10,11 Moreover, “medical
squads” of one physician and medics occasionally joined the
operating teams and prepared a provisional operating room in
Introduction
12
a close safe house. Commonly, the wounded warriors were
The current approach of the Israeli SF is based on experience evacuated to Jewish hospitals and were hidden there by the
and development of its fighting forces, before the declaration medical staff, not to be captured by their searchers. 13
of independence, and before the foundation of the IDF, in
1948.
First Organized SF
The Arab revolt in Palestine (1936–1939) against the Brit-
Nonregular Special Forces
ish and the Jewish population, and later the risk of losing the
The development of SF concepts started in the beginning of the Middle East to the German forces, drove the British and Jew-
20th century, when the Jewish community in Palestine strug- ish community in Palestine to cooperate, transforming small,
gled for independence against the Ottoman Empire, which nonregular Jewish forces into military organized SF: the “Spe-
controlled Palestine, then against the British Mandate for cial Night Squads” (SNS), a joint British–Jewish counterinsur-
Palestine, and against local Arab militia. During this period, gency unit, was created by Captain Orde Charles Wingate, a
numerous Jewish underground movements engaged in under- British officer, in 1938 in Palestine. Wingate was later pro-
cover military activity, collecting intelligence and improving moted to the rank of major-general in the British army and
self-defense tactics. Without any previous military traditions established British guerrilla units in Ethiopia and in Burma,
1
14
or any experience in guerrilla welfare, some of these early ini- where he was killed in 1944. The SNS in Palestine may be
tiatives were romantically based on biblical citations by the considered among the first British SF units and as one of the
2,3
spies of Moses and Joshua or the “Special Operations” of forerunners of the Special Air Service (SAS) regiments. The
the prophets Gideon and Sampson. Moreover, during the SNS established the principles for guerrilla warfare, includ-
4,5
Second World War, Jews who escaped from ghettos and con- ing small formations, intelligence gathering, direct action,
centration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe joined the partisan and more. These were integrated into all nonregular Jewish
6
movements, created Jewish partisan units, and experienced forces and later to the IDF. Thus, Wingate is considered in Is-
guerrilla and sabotage tactics. Other Jewish volunteers also rael as one of the founders of the Israeli SFs. The SNS did not

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