IDF announces formation of new division to defend Israel’s border with Jordan

Move comes weeks after gunmen breached border in an area south of the Dead Sea; IDF chief Halevi says new division will ease burden on reservists

View of the border between Israel and Jordan, in the Jordan valley, in the West Bank, on June 17, 2020. (Yaniv Nadav/Flash90)
View of the border between Israel and Jordan, in the Jordan valley, in the West Bank, on June 17, 2020. (Yaniv Nadav/Flash90)

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Wednesday the formation of a new division that will be tasked with defending the country’s eastern border.

In a statement, the IDF said the decision to launch the new eastern regional division was made following an examination of the military’s “operational needs and defense capabilities in the area, in accordance with the planning of the IDF’s force build-up, in the light of the lessons of war and the situational assessment.”

The move was approved by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.

“The mission of the division is to strengthen defenses in the border area, Route 90 and the communities, and to respond to terrorist incidents and weapons smuggling while maintaining a peaceful border and strengthening cooperation with the Jordanian army,” the IDF said.

The division will be subordinate to IDF Central Command.

At present, the Jordan Valley Regional Brigade, under Central Command, is tasked with defending some 150 kilometers of the eastern frontier, from the northern part of the Dead Sea in the West Bank to the Hamat Gader hot springs in the Golan Heights.

The Yoav Regional Brigade, under IDF Southern Command, is responsible for the sparsely populated southern section, from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea resort city of Eilat.

Israel Police forces block a road leading to the site of a terrorist infiltration from Jordan near the Dead Sea in Israel, Friday, October 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

The announcement follows an incident earlier in October during which two gunmen breached the border from Jordan and infiltrated into Israel in an area south of the Dead Sea, close to the border community of Neot HaKikar.

The Jordanian border in the area consists of coils of barbed wire piled on each other.

The gunmen, members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, opened fire at IDF troops, lightly injuring an active-duty soldier and moderately injuring a reservist from the Home Front Command before they were shot dead, having managed to cross no more than a few meters into Israeli territory.

A month prior, on September 8, a gunman from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the West Bank before security forces shot him dead.

Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Jordan. But the Allenby Bridge attack was the first of its kind along that border since the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties but cool diplomatic relations.

Israeli security forces near the scene where three civilians were murdered in a terror shooting attack at Allenby Bridge, a crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, September 8, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

IDF chief Halevi noted in a separate statement on Wednesday that “strengthening border defenses in general, and the eastern border in particular, was marked as a goal before the war, and it was reinforced in the shadow of October 7 and recent events.”

He also tied the decision to the IDF’s manpower shortage and the “urgent need” to find a solution to the burden that the shortage has placed on reservists, many of whom have served multiple stints in Gaza, on the northern border and now in southern Lebanon amid the ongoing ground operation there.

“In light of this, we decided to establish a division to strengthen the defense on the eastern border,” he said.

Halevi also addressed the manpower shortages in a conversation with officers on the northern border on Wednesday, when he acknowledged a letter that had been penned by reservists criticizing the continued failure to draft members of the ultra-Orthodox community, a move they said would have helped limit the many days of reserve duty they have been called to perform since the start of the war in Gaza over a year ago.

“I understand the costs — family, employment — and the burden,” Halevi said. “Now we need solutions. First, we will maintain support. For those who come [to reserve duty], we need to be there, we need to provide solutions, recognition and compensation, for a student or someone whose business has been heavily impacted.”

“The IDF needs to be larger, both in the standing army and reserves, which is why we’re building up more forces,” he continued.

Halevi said that while visiting injured soldiers on Monday, he “met a soldier from the Givati Brigade who was injured in Rafah. He took a bullet to the upper part of his thigh, not a pleasant injury but he’ll be ok.”

“He’s Haredi, from Bnei Brak,” the IDF chief said. “He wanted to enlist, even though his family didn’t support him initially, but once he started, they embraced him with open arms.

“They were with him even before he was injured and, of course, after he was injured. And I’m telling you, our question is how we can make many more like him,” Halevi said. “This is what’s right socially, and I think that when we manage to grow from this… from realizing the need for a larger IDF, it could also bring a very positive social change.”

Lazar Berman contributed to this report.

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