Menachem Digli

Menachem Digli was born in 1937 in Givatayim

Menachem Digli was born Menachem Darpekin in the Borochov neighborhood, later part of Givatayim. At 16 he moved to Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh.

He joined the IDF in 1955 and served in the Givati Brigade and later in Golani, where he became deputy commander of Sayeret Golani. In 1961 he joined Sayeret Matkal as deputy commander, but a serious road accident ended his path to command the unit. In 1963 he moved to Unit 154 of Military Intelligence.

He returned to Sayeret Matkal before the Six-Day War and commanded it from 1969, leading its force in the raid on Green Island. From 1972 he headed the Collection Department of Military Intelligence. Before the Yom Kippur War he tried without success to persuade the intelligence chief Eli Zeira to activate special signals collection means installed in Egypt.

After the war he initiated a plan for divisional intelligence collection and led the setup of divisional intelligence battalions in 1976 and 1977. He retired as a colonel in 1978, built a holiday village in the Yamit region and later worked as a security consultant. He died of lung cancer in 1998 and was buried at Ramat HaKovesh.