The Israel Defense Forces are facing one of the most unusual organizational changes in their recent history. Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir has announced the creation of a new military arm that will bring together unmanned systems, robotics and artificial intelligence. The technology itself is by no means new. What is new is that AI and robotics, together with unmanned systems, are to receive their own military organizational structure.
Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir announced the move on September 8, 2026, during the graduation ceremony of the 153rd Naval Officers’ Course at the Haifa naval base. According to him, planning for the new arm was completed the previous week. The new structure is to be inaugurated for Hanukkah in early December.
“The battlefield is changing at a dizzying pace, and we are changing with it,” Zamir said. The future would include unmanned systems, robotics, drones and broad use of artificial intelligence. According to Zamir, the new arm will be responsible for this rapidly expanding field. Among others, the Times of Israel and Israel Hayom.
Passende X-Beiträge
Aus dem SCHLAGSEITE X-ArchivNot Simply a New Drone Unit
Unmanned systems and artificial intelligence are not new to the IDF. The Israeli Air Force and the Artillery Corps have operated UAVs and drones for years. The Navy has unmanned surface vessels. The ground forces use various remotely controlled vehicles. At the same time, the IDF already uses artificial intelligence in data processing, intelligence gathering and military information systems. The Times of Israel explicitly points to these existing capabilities.
What is new, therefore, is not the technology. What is new is that unmanned systems and AI will no longer remain distributed exclusively across the air force, ground forces, navy and technical staffs, but will receive their own military address.
Zamir explicitly spoke of a new military arm for “unmanned systems and artificial intelligence.” According to him, robotic capabilities for land, air and sea are to be developed. Unmanned platforms are to be capable of being used both alongside manned formations and in independent missions.
A separate military arm could, over the long term, influence training, procurement, research, personnel planning, doctrine and force structure. How far these powers will actually extend is not publicly known so far.
ℹ️ The IDF has not yet published a detailed organizational structure. Among other things, the future leadership, personnel strength, budget and precise division of responsibilities from existing areas of the armed forces remain unknown. It is likewise unclear which existing responsibilities will actually be transferred to the new arm. It would therefore be too early at this point to speak of a fully developed “fourth branch of the armed forces.”
AI and Robotics Fulfill Different Tasks
The distinction between two areas that can easily be conflated under the buzzword AI is also important. On the one hand, there is artificial intelligence for unmanned platforms, robotics, coordination and the control of multiple systems. This is precisely the connection targeted by Zamir’s announcement.
This must be distinguished from AI-supported intelligence gathering, data analysis and targeting support within other military structures. Zamir’s speech does not say that these existing systems will automatically be transferred to the new arm, or that this would settle the public debate over AI in target identification.
The announced organizational area therefore initially concerns the combination of unmanned systems, robotics and AI as a military capability. Which additional AI tasks may later be placed there organizationally remains open.
Zamir Has Been Pursuing This Course for Some Time
The announcement did not come out of nowhere. On January 1, 2025, the Israeli Defense Ministry and the IDF had already established a dedicated administration for artificial intelligence and autonomy. It operates within the Israel Directorate of Defense Research and Development, MAFAT or DDR&D, and is intended to coordinate research, development and force building in this field.
The continuity in personnel is noteworthy. This administration was initiated by Eyal Zamir himself, then still director general of the Defense Ministry. In the official announcement by the Israeli Defense Ministry Zamir already explained in early 2025 that the future battlefield would be shaped by mixed formations of soldiers and autonomous systems.
The administration at the time was focused primarily on research, development and force building. The structure now announced within the IDF goes further organizationally. A technological development task is to become a separate military organizational area.
Behind this lies an Israeli ecosystem comprising MAFAT, established defense companies, start-ups and research institutions. The Defense Ministry itself describes how developments from these areas are accelerated and transferred together with the IDF into the operational sphere. The new arm is therefore not emerging in a technical vacuum. It is intended to bring together organizationally capabilities that government research, the armed forces and industry have long been developing.
The War Has Accelerated Development
The timing is hardly coincidental. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been facing a prolonged multi-front strain. Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and other operational theaters have not only increased the need for technology. They have also made visible the personnel limits of an army that depends continuously on conscripts, career soldiers and reservists.
Zamir himself addressed this personnel issue several times in 2026. In January, he told ultra-Orthodox soldiers that the scale and demands of the missions made an expansion of the IDF necessary. Extending military service was intended, among other things, to help reduce the burden on reservists. The corresponding statements are documented by the IDF in an official statement.
Unmanned systems do not solve this personnel problem. But they can take on tasks that would otherwise have to be performed by people and keep soldiers out of particularly dangerous situations. Zamir made precisely this connection in Haifa as well: The new capabilities were intended to expand operational activity and protect human lives.
The Defense Ministry described the technological development in unusually explicit terms as early as December 2025. Yaron Sarig, head of the AI and Autonomy Division at MAFAT, described the war since October 2023 as the “first robotics war.” According to him, tens of thousands of autonomous systems had been deployed on different battlefields in this context, from drone swarms to mobile ground robotics. The Defense Ministry statement makes clear that the mass deployment of these systems preceded the new organizational structure.
The IDF is therefore not reinventing robotics and autonomy with Zamir’s announcement. Organizationally, it is catching up with developments that have already expanded considerably in technical and operational terms over the past years.
Israel Is Not the First Country in the World to Do This
This context is important because the term “historic” can quickly sound grander than intended. For the Israeli military, establishing a new military arm is extraordinary. Worldwide, however, the idea of dedicated force structures for unmanned systems is not new.
Ukraine began building its own forces for unmanned systems as early as 2024. A decree issued by the Ukrainian president on June 25, 2024 officially established the “Unmanned Systems Forces” as an independent area within the Ukrainian armed forces.
Israel’s approach nevertheless has a distinctive feature. Zamir explicitly combines unmanned systems and artificial intelligence within the same new organization. This is not merely about bringing different robotic platforms together organizationally. AI is to become a connecting element of this area.
⚠️ The move neither proves that Israel is automatically a global technological leader, nor that machines are henceforth to decide independently on target selection or weapons use. “Independent missions” does not automatically mean autonomous weapons decisions. Zamir provided no such information. Nor can the new structure be used to infer how it will influence the outcome of future conflicts.
The Real Change Is Taking Place in the Organizational Chart
Military changes are not recognized only by new systems. Sometimes organizational charts are more revealing. As long as drones, robotics and AI are assigned to individual existing areas, competencies, budgets and responsibilities remain anchored there. A separate military arm challenges precisely this distribution.
This inevitably creates a question of power and responsibility within the General Staff: Who will be responsible for which systems in the future? It remains open whether the air force, ground forces and navy will actually have to relinquish operational responsibilities, or whether the new arm will primarily assume development, training, standards and cross-service coordination. Its relationship with MAFAT and existing AI structures has also not yet been clarified.
This is precisely what will show how far Zamir’s reform actually reaches. A designation on an organizational chart can be created quickly. An independent arm with personnel, a budget, powers and influence over force building would be something else.
The core of the announcement therefore remains noteworthy: The IDF now considers unmanned systems, robotics and artificial intelligence so important that it wants to lift this area out of its previous distribution across traditional branches of the armed forces and technical structures.
The new structure proves neither a technological revolution nor says anything yet about autonomous weapons decisions. It shows something more concrete: The IDF now regards AI, robotics and unmanned systems as a permanent element of its force structure and therefore wants to give them their own organizational standing.
Whether this actually produces the historic transformation described by Zamir will not be decided by drone footage or futuristic terminology. What will matter is which responsibilities, resources and military authority the new arm actually receives. That is precisely where the line runs between a new sign on a door and a real change to the IDF.
ℹ️ Factual basis and primary sources for the article 📑
▶️ Israel Defense Forces:
Graduation ceremony of the 153rd Naval Officers’ Course
Official IDF page on the ceremony in Haifa on September 8, 2026, at which Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir announced the new structure.
▶️ Israel Defense Forces:
The Chief of the General Staff to Ultra-Orthodox Troops
Official IDF statement dated January 21, 2026, on personnel requirements, the expansion of the armed forces, and relieving reservists.
▶️ Israeli Ministry of Defense:
Israel MOD Establishes AI and Autonomy Administration
Official statement dated January 1, 2025, on establishing the administration for artificial intelligence and autonomy.
▶️ Israeli Ministry of Defense:
This is the First Robotics War
Official assessment from December 2025 on the large-scale deployment of autonomous systems and cooperation between the IDF, industry, start-ups, and research.
▶️ Times of Israel:
Zamir says IDF to open new unmanned systems and AI branch by December
Report dated September 8, 2026, containing Zamir’s statements and an overview of existing IDF unmanned systems and AI structures.
▶️ Israel Hayom:
Speech by Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir in Haifa
Hebrew-language report providing an extensive account of Zamir’s speech of September 8, 2026.
▶️ President of Ukraine:
Decree No. 382/2024 on the Unmanned Systems Forces
Official basis for establishing an independent Ukrainian armed forces branch for unmanned systems in 2024.
🔎 Discovered an error, criticism, or addition?
SCHLAGSEITE.eu stands for careful research and transparent corrections. Have you discovered a factual error, unclear wording, or a broken link? Then send me your tip. If possible, please provide a verifiable source.
