Avigdor Ben - Gal Avigdor " Yanush " Ben - Gal ( ; born 1936 ) is a former Israeli General . Life . Early life . Ben - Gal was born 1936 in Lodz , Poland . When he was three years old , World War II broke out with Germany invading Poland . The family fled to Russia and were sent to Siberia . After Yanush ' s mother died in Siberia , his father decided to save 3 - year old Yanush and his 6 year - old sister Liana by bribing some Polish officials to take the youngsters to safety with the Polish Anders ' Army . The siblings first ended up in Tehran , then they were sent to India . Together , they walked , hitchhiked , and hitched rides aboard trains , and after many adventures and hardships they arrived in British Mandatory Palestine ( later Israel ) with a group of German - Jewish refugee children . They were placed in a kibbutz , like many European orphans escaping the Holocaust , but soon left the kibbutz and hiked to Tel Aviv , where they were taken in and raised by a distant cousin . Military career . A few years after Israel became independent and won the 1948 Arab - Israeli War , Ben - Gal was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces ( IDF ) . His first combat experience came during the 1956 Suez War with Egypt . Despite having dreamed of being a doctor , he decided to stay in the army after his mandatory military service was finished . In an interview , he explained his reasons : " I never intended to turn the army into a career , but I remained because I liked it . I loved the Negev , the desert , the fields . I loved speeding in jeeps . Later I got used to the army , and it became a part of me . And maybe also , I was afraid to make a new start in life . " During the Six - Day War in 1967 , he was the operations chief of a brigade that broke through Egyptian fortifications in the Sinai . He lost half his right foot when his jeep struck a mine . By 1972 , he had been appointed commander of a brigade . During the Yom Kippur War in 1973 , Ben - Gal commanded the 7th Armored Brigade and oversaw the defense of the Golan Heights against Syrian attack . Ben - Gal had foreseen the war two weeks before it started , and had begun preparing his brigade . As the threat of war wasn ' t being taken seriously in Israel at the time , he had been branded a " madman " . However , when the war broke out , his brigade was the only IDF unit in a state of full readiness . The heroic stand of the 7th Armored Brigade and Yanush Ben - Gal ' s personal heroism and leadership are believed by many to be decisive factors in the Israeli victory over the Syrians . In 1977 , Ben - Gal was appointed head of the Northern Command . He served in this position until late - summer 1981 , when he was replaced by General Amir Drori . Later life . In June 1997 he was called to testify in a libel suit that Ariel Sharon brought against the Israeli newspaper Ha ' aretz for their claim that he had concealed his plans for an operation into Lebanon in 1982 - during which Ben Gal was still leading the Northern Command . His testimony at trial , however , contradicted earlier statements he had made at Tel Aviv University where he stated that the greatest problem with the Lebanon War was the " " " secret , unapproved plan of the defense minister and chief of staff . " " " The following month Ha ' aretz requested that the Attorney General investigate the possibility that Ben - Gal had given false testimony in court in exchange for business favours from Sharon . The complaint noted that shortly before his appearance at the trial , Ben - Gal was sent by Sharon to explore the possibility of a large natural gas deal in Russia . In 2001 , Ben - Gal reportedly submitted an application to train the Congo Army in Israel . From 1996 to 2002 he was Chairman of the Board of Directors for Israel Aerospace Industries . He also serves on the board for the International Policy Institute for Counter - Terrorism . During a 2007 military conference in Latrun , Ben - Gal sharply criticized what he viewed as a deterioration in the battle readiness of the IDF , and claimed that the IDF ' s technological revolution has turned soldiers into " bionic machines " and sewn fear among senior officers that open criticism would hamper advancement in their own careers . He expressed the view that all the new technologies being introduced were useless , and claimed that it had gotten to the point where commanders prefer to email each other instead of interacting . Since 2009 he has been serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors for N . S . O Group Technologies .