The period following Hamas’s mass murder attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent multi-front war has transformed the IDF’s main strategic doctrine and its operational tactics for enabling long-term urban warfare. This transformation is also shaping the long-term development of Israeli defense technology and critical military capabilities, both offensive and defensive.

At the heart of this change is the doctrinal directive that concepts of deterrence and containment—which formed the conceptual DNA of the catastrophic misconception regarding the threat posed by Hamas before the attack—must be replaced by a proactive and continuous dismantling of enemy capabilities as they form around Israel, both near and far.

Enemy intentions and ideological commitment to eradicating the Jewish state in order to create an Islamic state and eventually a global caliphate must be taken at face value. These intentions should not be dismissed in favor of attempts to project Western cost-benefit calculations onto jihadist decision-makers.

Alongside these changes, being implemented across all of Israel’s fronts, a range of tactical evolutionary shifts have occurred to enhance combat capabilities for engaging adversaries.

Collectively, these developments offer profound insights into the future trajectory of armed conflict in the Middle East and beyond. A recent large-scale IDF General Staff exercise held in August 2025, designed to test the readiness and multi-arena capabilities of its headquarters across all branches, evaluated these new principles and the military’s ability to translate them into operational abilities.

Doctrinal and Conceptual Shifts: From Containment to Proactive Dismantling

The most profound lesson to emerge from the events of October 7, 2023, is the imperative to fundamentally re-evaluate Israel’s strategic doctrine and conceptual framework. For decades, Israel’s security policy had been anchored in a doctrine of deterrence and containment, assuming that adversaries—particularly non-state actor terror armies like Hamas and Hezbollah—could be managed through calibrated responses and a focus on cost-benefit analysis.

However, this approach proved to be a catastrophic misconception. It failed to account for the ideological and religious motivations of jihadist decision-makers, who are willing to incur immense costs to achieve their ultimate goal of eradicating Israel and establishing an Islamic caliphate.

The new doctrinal directive mandates a shift from a reactive to a proactive strategy as a direct result of this realization. The core principle is that enemy intentions and their ideological commitment to destruction must be taken at face value and not dismissed as mere rhetoric.

This approach rejects the notion of containment in favor of continuously dismantling enemy capabilities as they emerge, both near and far from Israel’s borders. Any gathering or formation of hostile forces, any attempt to smuggle or produce offensive weapons, or any move to establish an operational front must be met with an immediate and decisive response, rather than waiting for an attack to materialize.

This doctrinal shift is transforming the military’s approach to its borders. The IDF’s perception has shifted from viewing the borders as simple boundaries to seeing them as active fronts. This need for change was identified by Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal, former commander of the IDF’s Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking.

This new perspective is inherently offensive and replaces the passive-defensive posture that characterized all of Israel’s border activities. It is supported by a daily willingness to engage in proactive strikes to prevent threats from ever reaching the border.

This new doctrine is being applied across all of Israel’s fronts and arenas, from Lebanon, where the IDF has conducted hundreds of strikes against emerging Hezbollah targets since the November 2024 truce, to Syria, where the IDF uses firepower to enforce its policy of not allowing heavily armed units from the new Islamist Syrian army to move south of Damascus. This approach also extends to the West Bank, Gaza, and, in a way, to Iran as well.

Israel’s recent intervention in southern Syria to protect the Druze community—striking Syrian army forces and the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters—is a direct example of this proactive policy in action. The IDF’s actions in southern Syria and its stated intention to maintain an indefinite presence on Mount Hermon (part of nine IDF positions in the Syrian buffer zone) reflect a new resolve to enforce a demilitarized zone and prevent the entrenchment of hostile forces.

The institutionalization of these doctrinal changes is also being tested through large-scale exercises. A senior IDF Operations Branch official confirmed that a General Staff exercise in August 2025 specifically evaluated the new principles of multi-arena readiness and the military’s ability to translate them into operational capabilities.

The exercise involved drills for all headquarters (air, sea, and land) and regional commands to ensure that the entire military apparatus aligns with the tactical activation of the new doctrine. This represents a comprehensive, top-down effort to integrate these principles into the operational DNA of the IDF, ensuring that past lessons are not only retained but transformed into a more robust and proactive security policy for the future.

Western militaries and civilian defense echelons, such as the Pentagon, are closely monitoring this trend. The impact on their operational readiness and posture toward Islamist and jihadist entities, as well as near-peer rivals, and how they advise political leaders in addressing future threats, remains to be seen.

The Ascendancy of Unmanned Systems, AI, and Real-time Intelligence

Israel’s ongoing multi-arena war has unequivocally highlighted the increasing significance of real-time intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), manned aircraft with upgraded capabilities, artificial intelligence, digital command systems, and satellites as indispensable assets in modern warfare, transforming intelligence gathering, strike capabilities, and battle management.

Throughout its operations, the IDF has utilized Elbit’s Torch X (referred to in the IDF as Digital Ground Army) to manage its battles. Without this system, the IDF would struggle to maneuver at large scale across enemy territory in a coordinated manner, provide unprecedented close fire support, ensure all relevant units are updated on enemy locations, or activate tank and artillery fire as seamlessly as a conductor leads an orchestra.

International militaries are closely observing how the IDF employs this system as a battlefield digital map, offering multiple levels of situational awareness—from the entire theater of operations available to the IDF General Staff and regional commands down to individual units like battalions and companies.

The maps display the precise locations of soldiers, vehicles, and the enemy, allowing commanders to order firepower strikes through screen interfaces. They also indicate the real-time positions of aircraft and the areas they are surveilling.

Meanwhile, the IDF’s UAV and drone capabilities are making military history.

The IDF’s Operation Rising Lion, a historic preemptive operation lasting 12 days against Iran’s nuclear facilities and ballistic missile infrastructure, launched on June 13, 2025, showcased the unprecedented reach and operational effectiveness of its UAV array.

During the operation, hundreds of Israeli fighter jets were employed to achieve aerial superiority over all of Iran. UAVs logged thousands of flight hours and executed over 500 strikes and interdictions within Iranian territory, reducing risk to combat pilots while conducting critical missions, such as missile launcher hunts, according to data provided by the Israeli Defense Ministry after the Iran war.

This extensive deployment saved many lives and prevented widespread damage to the Israeli home front. Combined with the Swords of Iron War, UAV missions accounted for a staggering 60% of total Israeli Air Force flight hours and 50% of all IDF strike operations, highlighting their centrality to contemporary military engagements.

In August 2025, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s strategic procurement of thousands of FPV (First Person View) drones for the IDF Ground Forces further emphasized the integration of advanced unmanned technology into ground operations. These drones significantly enhance the operational capabilities of ground forces, offering optimal solutions to modern warfare challenges, particularly in dense urban warfare settings. Gaza, with its extensive network of terror tunnels and Hamas’s massive use of civilian structures as bases, represents one of the most complex arenas in the world.

FPV drones, extensively used in the Russia-Ukraine war, employ virtual reality headsets that allow operators to control drones in a revolutionary manner. The Israeli Xtend drones ordered by the Defense Ministry enable operators to point into the surrounding space and direct the drones to specific locations. They are also capable of deploying nets to capture enemy drones.

On the ground, Israel has begun utilizing unmanned armored personnel carriers and unmanned D9 armored bulldozers as part of a robotic combat task force, according to Israel Aerospace Industries.

IAI is also developing the Carmel program, designed to coordinate multiple unmanned platforms to operate as a team to complete missions with minimal human intervention. Carmel is based on the Automission system, described by IAI as a “brain” that unites all unmanned tools and integrates them into combat, while the Athena computer system acts as the “brain” for each individual vehicle.

These trends reflect a broader shift towards “mosaic warfare” and manned/unmanned teaming solutions, where small, powerful sensors and systems fused with artificial intelligence work in concert to provide comprehensive situational awareness.

Platforms like the F-35 stealth aircraft play a critical role in network-centered warfare. During the Iran war, air force sources described it as a major factor in the Israeli success, largely due to its ability to create battle pictures “in a league above everyone else,” referring to it as “an airborne intelligence center.”

The wealth of data produced by these advanced sensors—including electronic warfare signals, electro-optical and infrared imagery, and missile warning cues—can generate new forms of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), and targeting information.

Space-based intelligence gathering further enhances this capability. During Operation Rising Lion, satellite systems captured tens of millions of square kilometers in high-resolution imagery, day and night, producing over 12,000 satellite images of Iranian territory.

These satellite systems also provided critical communications infrastructure with high availability to support the operation. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers were surveilled, enabling the IDF to identify hundreds of targets through covert collection without exposing personnel. Continuous high-frequency intelligence gathering facilitated rapid target engagement. This comprehensive space-based intelligence, combined with advanced AI and digital capabilities, demonstrated exceptional performance across all operational systems, proving instrumental in delivering tactical surprise and air superiority.

The ability to precisely engage targets at extended ranges despite hostile electronic warfare environments represents a unique Israeli technological achievement developed over many years. The increasing reliance on unmanned systems and real-time, multi-domain intelligence points to a future that is already here, where information superiority and precision strike capabilities are the paramount combined advantage over adversaries.

The Air Defense Arms Race: A New Era of Interception

The proliferation of advanced missile and drone technologies by state and non-state actors has ignited an intense air defense arms race, compelling Israel to continuously innovate and upgrade its defensive capabilities. Lessons from recent conflicts, particularly extensive Iranian missile and UAV attacks, will profoundly shape this evolution in the years to come.

Israel’s multi-layered air and missile defense architecture, developed by the Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D) within the Israeli Ministry of Defense, proved exceptionally effective during Operation Rising Lion. According to the Ministry’s figures, it prevented more than $15 billion in property damage and safeguarded countless lives from ballistic missile and UAV attacks.

This integrated Israeli system, supported by American air defense systems,achieved an 86% interception rate for ballistic missiles launched from Iran and over 99% interception of Iranian drones.

Enhanced versions of the Arrow air defense system were integrated in the months leading up to the operation against Iran, with the latest version deployed just a week before the conflict. System upgrades to Iron Dome and David’s Sling, which operate at lower altitudes, along with a breakthrough Iron Dome test against drone swarms conducted in March 2025, contributed to this unprecedented multi-layered air defense response.

A significant innovation in this arms race is the development of laser weapon systems. On May 28, 2025, the  Ministry of Defense announced successful battlefield interceptions using high-power laser weapons by the Israeli Air Force. Developed under an accelerated program, these systems successfully intercepted numerous enemy threats, achieving over 40 operational interceptions during the fighting that began in October 2023.

The DDR&D is simultaneously advancing three different laser weapon programs: Iron Beam, smaller tactical lasers, and an airborne laser capable of neutralizing threats while flying above them.

The Iron Beam system, expected to be delivered later in 2025, utilizes a 100 kW laser to intercept threats,including rockets, mortar shells, UAVs, and cruise missiles. Its main advantage lies in cost-effectiveness—approximately $5 per interception (the cost of electricity)—a crucial consideration given the expense of missile interceptors. However, its estimated range of 8–10 km is shorter than that of Iron Dome, and it can only engage one threat at a time, emphasizing its role as a complement rather than a replacement.

The arms race also extends to countering hypersonic threats. Israel Aerospace Industries is developing the Arrow 4 missile interceptor, designed to detect and neutralize hypersonic weapons traveling at Mach 5 or faster. Arrow 4 features re-targeting capabilities, course correction, and the ability to inflict significant damage even without a direct hit. Additionally, Rafael’s SkySonic interceptor is  designed to neutralize hypersonic missiles traveling at Mach 5-10 with exceptional maneuverability and precision.

This relentless arms race is already having global implications. Germany has chosen Arrow 3, which intercepts ballistic missile threats in space, as its primary air defense system against Russian missile threats, in a deal worth 4 billion Euros.

The Return of Ground Forces

The Swords of Iron War against Hamas in Gaza has decisively ended any lingering debate about the centrality of an active and capable ground army in every operational arena. The conflict demonstrated that while airpower and intelligence are crucial, they alone cannot achieve decisive tactical or strategic results in complex urban environments or against deeply entrenched non-state actors.

Over the past two years, the IDF has gained unprecedented experience in Gaza, the world’s most challenging urban warfare theater, It repeatedly found itself compelled to re-engage in areas previously deemed “defeated” from the air, underscoring the limitations of precision firepower in dense urban terrain, as noted by Capt. (res.) Gal Perl at the Dado Center, where he serves as a senior researcher.

This realization has prompted significant reinvestment in ground maneuvering capabilities. InAugust 2025, the Israel Defense Procurement Committee approved a $1.5 billion plan to accelerate the production of Israeli armored vehicles, including Merkava Mk. 4 Barak tanks, tracked Namer armored personnel carriers (APCs), and Eitan wheeled APCs.

All of the new APCs will be equipped with active protection systems, a game-changing capability that allowed Israeli armor to avoid the catastrophic fate of Russian armor in Ukraine. This led the United States to purchase the Israeli-made Trophy active protection system, produced by Rafael, for its Abrams tanks.

The latest Israeli investment in domestically manufactured armored vehicles directly stems from their combat success in the Swords of Iron War. These platforms have accumulated over one million kilometers in current operations since the war began, proving their decisive importance for maneuvering into contested ground.

This acceleration, coupled with an expansion of domestic production infrastructure, is a strategic decision to maintain the IDF’s qualitative military edge and enhance its ability to prevail in any arena, according to the Defense Ministry.

Underground Combat Capabilities

Within the context of the need to detect the asymmetrical threat posed by Hamas and to quickly respond to evasive target information by rapidly completing the sensor-to-shooter cycle above ground, the massive challenge of underground warfare emerges—especially in Gaza, where Hamas has spent 15 years constructing several hundred kilometers of combat tunnels, exploiting the region’s soft sands to move its operatives out of sight, coordinate attacks, and hold hostages.

The past two years of combat have established the IDF as the world’s leading authority on subterranean warfare. This effort encompasses multiple tunnel-detection capabilities, including specialists who analyze intelligence to map tunnels and bunkers, as well as advanced tunnel detection technology.

The Israeli Air Force employs munitions capable of penetrating underground and detonating with a delayed fuse. Meanwhile, the IDF Engineering Corps operates specialized tunnel teams under the command of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit and Southern Command.

The Engineering Corps can also utilize additional tools, such as D9 bulldozers, to destroy shafts. A range of robots are at the IDF’s disposalfor tunnel scanning and for engaging the enemy before soldiers do.

During the fighting, the IDF developed operational tactics that enabled forces to advance simultaneously underground and above ground in the same area, representing a world first.

It is reasonable to assume that several other classified methods have been developed to addressthe tunnel threat.

Conclusion

Israel’s multi-arena war, which has been ongoing since Hamas’s massacre on October 7, serves as a stark reminder that the nature of warfare is in constant evolution, driven by technological innovation and the adaptive strategies of both state and non-state actors. The lessons learned from these conflicts will help shape the future of military engagement globally.

Conceptually, Israel’s strategic paradigm shift—from containment and deterrence to proactive offense on all fronts, coupled with zero tolerance for enemy force build-up activities—represents a dramatic transformation born from the tragedy of October 7.

To implement this new doctrine, various tactical tools with strategic significance have been developed, each playing an irreplaceable role in Israel’s shift and already influencing the global defense market and foreign military assessments.

With the centrality of ground forces re-established and the rise of man-machine teaming, real-time intelligence, artificial intelligence, and digital command and battlefield management, Israel is rewriting the rules of modern warfare.

Additionally, the arms race between Israel’s air defenders and Iranian attackers holds global significance, given the missile threats posed by Russia and Iran to Western Europe and the United States, as well as China’s missile capabilities.

Israel has long served as a global laboratory for combat, but the past two years have seen it transition from a catastrophic strategic surprise—last experienced in October 1973—to achieving strategic and tactical superiority throughout the Middle East.

To maintain these gains and forge alliances with moderate Sunni Arab powers—many of whom seek Israeli defense capabilities—Israel must invest heavily in sustaining its existing force posture while developing the next generation of capabilities. This approach is essential to secure its future and eliminate jihadist forces before they escalate to monstrous, pandemic-like proportions. Israel’s frontline position in the war against jihadism and its battlefield innovations will continue to draw attention from militaries worldwide, regardless of international media condemnation and hypocrisy regarding Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against genocidal adversaries.

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JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.

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