IDF announces commando training school for special units
New base, to be completed by 2019, part of army’s plan to unite elite units into a single brigade
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IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot on Sunday approved the establishment of a new commando school that will train some the army’s most elite soldiers, including members of the Egoz, Maglan, and Rimon units, the military said.
The training center will be the culmination of a plan begun in 2015, when a new commando brigade was created to bring together special force units.
An officer with the rank of brigadier general was appointed to head the project of setting up the commando school during the coming year. He was not named in the IDF statement for security reasons.
Recruits to the elite units will still do their initial basic training and advanced infantry training in their regular training bases and then continue on to the new school, which will be ready for operation by 2019, the statement said.
The commando brigade, officially known as Brigade Oz, was launched under the command of Col. David Zini, a veteran of the famed Sayeret Matkal special forces unit, and is part of Central Command’s 98th Division.
By combining some of the army’s most specialized units — Egoz, Rimon, Maglan and Duvdevan — which are currently scattered throughout the IDF, Eisenkot planned to do away with redundancies and ultimately strengthen the individual units, whose services will surely be needed soon, the chief of staff said in 2015.
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