The IDF unveiled a new cyber defense division on Wednesday that will serve as a technological-operational hub for developing the military's information and artificial intelligence technological systems. The new division, called Alumot, is being built to deepen the military's information advantage in the combat space and in what it calls the learning competition against the enemy, with soldiers, technology professionals, information researchers and artificial intelligence experts folded into the same apparatus.
Who Gets the Tools, Who Gets the Orders
The military said Alumot will operate alongside other IDF branches to provide technological solutions to real operational challenges. That means the people at the bottom of the chain — soldiers in combat roles and warriors on the front lines — are the ones being handed the products of a system designed and managed from above. The IDF said the unit will develop and make available information and artificial intelligence capabilities to those front-line forces, turning battlefield decision-making into another arena for centralized control.
Major-General Aviad Dagan, the IDF's Communications and Cyber Defense commander, said the combination of soldiers in the field and the advanced technological capabilities of the IDF made many of the war's achievements possible. He said the battlefield is evolving before the military's eyes and requires constant learning and innovation, and that the Alumot unit will work to develop and make available information and artificial intelligence capabilities to warriors on the front lines. In the language of the military, this is innovation; in practice, it is the tightening of a high-tech command structure over people sent to carry out its wars.
The Machinery Behind the War
The Jerusalem Post said in an exclusive May report that Matzpen, the IDF unit most responsible for integrating and disseminating artificial intelligence and big data across the military, played a critical role in transforming the air force's effectiveness during the recent war with Iran. That report placed the real power where it often sits: in the units that process data, coordinate attacks and turn machine systems into battlefield force multipliers.
Its commander, Col. Rotem Beshi, told the Post in an exclusive interview that a new system managed by Matzpen and known as the LOCHEM system handled all the planning for attacks on Iran, starting with coordination with the air force's special, relatively new Iran unit. The phrase "all the planning" says plenty on its own. The war machine is not just flying aircraft; it is being organized through layered technological systems that centralize planning, coordination and execution.
The report also said Dagan, who previously served as commander of the Israel Air Force's Hatzerim Air Base, was one of two major generals who returned to flight duty and participated in airstrikes against Iran during Operation Rising Lion in June. Walla confirmed that Dagan and Maj.-Gen. (res) Tal Kelman participated in an unspecified number of airstrike runs during Operation Rising Lion. Kelman is no longer on active duty in the IDF and previously served as IAF Chief of Staff and head of the IDF's Strategy and Iran Directorate.
What the Military Calls Progress
The IDF's announcement frames Alumot as a response to a battlefield that is changing fast and demands constant adaptation. But the facts in the announcement show a familiar hierarchy: a military institution expanding its technological reach, a command structure concentrating intelligence and planning, and front-line personnel expected to absorb the results. The new division will include combat soldiers, technology professionals, information researchers and artificial intelligence experts, all operating under the same military umbrella and in service of the same chain of command.
The report was by Tobias Holcman, with Yonah Jeremy Bob and Amir Bohbot contributing. The timing also matters: the Jerusalem Post report on Matzpen's role in the war with Iran came in May 2026, and Operation Rising Lion followed later in the same year in June 2026. The sequence shows a military apparatus publicly celebrating the technological systems that helped shape its war-making, then announcing a new division to deepen that same advantage.
Alumot is presented as a cyber defense division, but the language around it makes clear it is also a battlefield information hub, built to keep the IDF ahead in the military competition it describes as learning against the enemy. The people doing the learning are not the ones making the decisions. The decisions remain where they always do: at the top of the chain, inside the apparatus.