Yitzhak Eitan

Yitzhak Eitan was born in 1952 in Israel

Yitzhak Eitan, born Itzik Eisenman, was born in 1952. He grew up in Kiryat Haim and graduated from the Kiryat Haim comprehensive high school.

He joined the IDF in July 1970 with a Hashomer Hatzair group and volunteered for the paratrooper Nahal battalion. He commanded a company in the Yom Kippur War on the Golan Heights and in Sinai, and was operations officer of the Paratroopers Brigade in Operation Entebbe. He later served in Sayeret Matkal and fought in Beirut in the Lebanon War.

He commanded the 50th Paratroopers Battalion, the 5th Brigade, the Nahal Brigade and the officers school Bahad 1. He then led the Sinai formation, the Gaza Division and the Judea and Samaria Division. In July 2000 he became head of Central Command and led it during the Second Intifada and Operation Defensive Shield.

After leaving the IDF in 2003 he chaired the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel's Soldiers. He served on the committee examining the killing of Hamas official Salah Shehade, was CEO of Lagin Tuboplast in 2010 to 2011, and in 2015 led a General Staff team examining unusual incidents in Operation Protective Edge. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics and business from the University of Haifa and lives in Moshav Kerem Maharal, where he runs an olive and banana farm.