Yoram Halevy returns home to Jerusalem, as new police chief

In a slight shake-up of the Israel Police’s top brass, Commissioner Roni Alsheich announced Wednesday that current Southern District Commander Yoram Halevy will move north to head the Jerusalem District, while the current head of the capital’s police, Moshe “Chico” Edri will move to Tel Aviv in order to take over for Bentzi Sau, who is retiring from the force.

Halevy has served in most elite units of the Israel Police during his 30 years of service. In 1988, he took part in one of the police’s most daring rescue operations after a group of terrorists seized a bus bound for the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, taking mostly working mothers hostage. The terrorists killed three passengers during the incident, which would later be known as the “mother’s bus attack.”

Halevy was reportedly a candidate for the position of Israel Police commissioner, but was passed over in favor of outsider Alsheich, who had previously served as a high-ranking official in the Shin Bet security service. The new appointment will be a homecoming of sorts for Halevy, who was born into a large family — eight brothers and four sisters — in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem.

The 52-year-old Halevy had indicated that he may leave the police force altogether following Alsheich’s appointment, although that clearly was not the case.

Halevy’s record includes stints in both the Special Police Unit — known in Hebrew by the acronym “Yamam” and a force similar to American SWAT teams — and the Border Guard, a gendarmerie responsible for both securing the nation’s borders and for counter-terrorism.

In 1981, he joined the IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade and fought in the First Lebanon War. Upon his release from the army in the mid-1980s, Halevy joined Yamam, serving first as an officer and then commander in the unit.

Mother’s bus attack

In March 1988, three Fatah terrorists snuck into Israel and began a rampage in the Negev desert, which ended with them taking 11 hostages, predominantly working mothers, on a bus traveling to the Negev Nuclear Research Center, the alleged site of Israel’s nuclear weapons factory.

The Palestinian terrorists shot two hostages, before Halevy and other Yamam officers stormed the bus and killed the attackers. In the struggle, however, the terrorists managed to kill a third hostage.

Despite the deaths of some passengers, the attack is still considered a remarkably successful rescue operation, which gave credibility and public recognition to Yamam. Besides Halevy, many of other Yamam officers went on to have illustrious careers in the Israel Police.

A career with Israel Police

In 1989, Halevy was injured in action, effectively ending his operational career and leading to him being placed in charge of training and operations for Yamam.

He left the unit in the mid-1990s for the police’s elite Undercover Unit, known as “Yamas,” which is considered one of the most impressive and tactically advanced units in all of Israel’s security forces.

Halevy then moved to the Gideon Unit, a similarly elite and secret counterterrorism unit in the Israel Police, before returning to the nation’s capital to serve as head of its central intelligence and investigations unit.

He remained in Jerusalem, commanding the city’s Border Guard for two years, until 2007, at which point when he took over command of Yamam from Deputy Police Commissioner Zohar Dvir.

Halevy achieved his current rank of major general in 2009, when in addition to his role as head of Yamam, he was given command of the Lahav 433 unit, responsible for investigating and stopping political corruption.

But due to irreconcilable differences with head of the police’s investigation and intelligence chief Yoav Segalovich, Halevy served as head of Lahav 433 for less than a year.

From 2010, Halevy jumped between several positions, first leading the Community Outreach and Civil Guard, then commanding the Border Guard before finally entering his current position as head of the Southern District.

The Southern District, which encompasses nearly two-thirds of Israel’s total landmass, is one of the most difficult areas to police, with two borders through which people, drugs and weapons can be smuggled, rocket-fire from the Gaza Strip and a Bedouin population that frequently clashes with police and government forces.