The IDF announced Friday that the outgoing head of the Paratroopers Battalion will be appointed military secretary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Colonel Eliezer Toledano will replace Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who will be transferred in the coming months to serve as head of the IDF’s Southern Command, the IDF Spokesperson said. Zamir has served as military secretary for the past three years.
The military secretary acts as the prime minister’s senior IDF advisor on national security matters.
Toledano, a lifetime Paratrooper, was selected for the position by the prime minister, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot. Last year, he commanded the Paratroopers Brigade during Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip.
Upon assuming the post, he will be promoted to brigadier general.
The move to appoint Toledano as a brigadier general — rather than give the position to a major general — was part of Eisenkot’s recently announced scale-back of the size of the IDF’s officer corps. The number of major generals is slated to be slashed by 20 percent.
In July, Eisenkot unveiled the army’s reorganization plan, which would see career officers’ pensions upheld, with certain reforms, cuts to the military’s reserve personnel, a 6 percent across-the-board cut to headquarters personnel, the relegation of certain jobs to the civilian sector and several structural reforms in combat units.
