page_title: Israeli Ground Forces
section_title: Weapons and equipment
hierarchical_section_title: Israeli Ground Forces / Weapons and equipment
caption_attribution_description: עברית: סדרת טנקי המרכבה הישראלית. בכיוון השעון: מרכבה סימן 1, מרכבה סימן 2, מרכבה סימן 3 ב"ז, מרכבה סימן 4English: The Israeli Merkava main battle tanks. Clockwise: Mk I, Mk II, Mk III Baz, Mk IV
context_page_description: The Israeli Ground Forces are the ground forces of the Israel Defense Forces. As part of the military wing of the Israeli security forces, the ground forces have no civilian jurisdiction within Israel. The commander is the General Officer Commanding with the rank of Major General, the Mazi, subordinate to the Chief of General Staff.
  An order from Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion on 26 May 1948 officially set up the Israel Defense Forces as a conscript army formed out of the paramilitary group Haganah, incorporating the militant groups Irgun and Lehi. The Ground Forces have served in all the country's major military operations—including the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, 1956 Suez Crisis, 1967 Six-Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1976 Operation Entebbe, 1982 Lebanon War, 1987–1993 First Intifada, 2000–2005 Second Intifada, 2006 Lebanon War, and the Gaza War. While originally the IDF operated on three fronts—against Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan and Iraq in the east, and Egypt in the south—after the 1979 Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty, it has concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, including the First and the Second Intifada.
context_section_description: The Ground Forces possess various domestic and foreign weapons and computer systems. Some equipment is from the United States (modified for IDF use) such as the M4A1 and M16 assault rifles, the M24 SWS 7.62 mm bolt action sniper rifle, the SR-25 7.62 mm semi-automatic sniper rifle, and the AH-1 Cobra and AH-64D Apache attack helicopters.
  Israel has a domestic arms industry, which has developed weapons and vehicles such as the Merkava battle tank series, and various small arms such as the Galil and Tavor assault rifles, and the Uzi submachine gun.
  Israel has also installed a variant of the Samson RCWS, a remote controlled weapons platform, which can include machine guns, grenade launchers, and anti-tank missiles on a remotely operated turret, in pillboxes along the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier to prevent Palestinian militants from entering its territory. Israel has developed observation balloons equipped with sophisticated cameras and surveillance systems used to thwart terror attacks from Gaza. The Ground Forces also possess advanced combat engineering equipment including the IDF Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer, IDF Puma combat engineering vehicle, Tzefa Shiryon and CARPET minefield breaching rockets, and a variety of robots and explosive devices.
caption: Merkava – Israeli main battle tank, with 4 generations
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