Rafael Eitan Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

On 23 November 2004, Eitan arrived at the Mediterranean sea port of Ashdod, where he was overseeing a port expansion project. A large wave swept him from a breakwater into the sea and he drowned. He was lost in rough waters for over an hour before his body was recovered by the Israeli Navy. He was pronounced dead after efforts to revive him failed.

In 1999 Tzomet failed to win any Knesset seats and Eitan retired from politics.

On 1996, Tzomet joined an alliance of Likud and Gesher headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. Although the triumvirate lost the Knesset election to Labour, Netanyahu won the election for Prime Minister, allowing him to form the government. Eitan was promised the ministry of internal security, but a criminal investigation against him blocked his nomination. The investigation eventually cleared Eitan and the case was closed on 1998 due to “lack of evidence”. In the meantime, Eitan served as Agriculture and Environment Minister and also as a Deputy Prime Minister (1998–99).

Eitan initially joined the Tehiya party and was first elected to the Knesset in 1984. Later he established an ultra-nationalist party called Tzomet, which had conservative views on defense and foreign policy but a liberal and secular domestic platform. He was elected to the 11th Knesset and served as Minister of Agriculture between 1988 and 1991, when Tzomet left the government. In the 1992 elections, Tzomet achieved a record of eight seats, but Eitan refused to join Yitzhak Rabin’s coalition.

In its recommendations the commission noted that Eitan was due to retire in April 1983 and therefore resolved “that it is sufficient to determine responsibility without making any further recommendation.”

After his retirement from the army in April 1983, Eitan entered politics. He had the image of the sabra Israeli who connected to his roots and to the land. His background in agriculture and hobbies such as wood work and flight contributed to this image, which attracted many in the Israeli public.

Eitan was considered to be a conservative advocating tough policies towards the Palestinians. On 12 April 1983 Eitan said in a Knesset committee meeting: “The Arabs will never defeat us by throwing stones. Our answer will be a nationalist Zionist solution. For every stone throwing – we’ll establish ten settlements. If there will be – and there will be – a hundred settlements between Nablus and Jerusalem, no stones will be thrown” On another occasion, in an address to the Knesset, he remarked “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle”.

Eitan oversaw the redeployment of the IDF outside of the Sinai Peninsula after the peninsula was handed back to Egypt. He and Sharon demolished the Israeli settlement Yamit in Sinai in April 1982 after the Egyptians refused to pay for its infrastructure.

In April 1982 he initiated a new policy in the Occupied Territories which in Israeli army slang became known by the Hebrew word tertur. One document from his office stated:

After the trial of seven members of the Israeli army in December 1982, an Israeli operations officer was quoted as described tertur: “In addition to this business where you work to discover the provocateurs, you tertur the population. Population tertur does not mean that you punish those who did something, but you simply round up everyone, just like that.”

On 3 June 1982, Abu Nidal’s militant group gravely wounded Israel’s ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, in an assassination attempt. In response, the Israeli Air Force bombed Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The Palestinian militants shelled Israel’s northern settlements in retaliation and resulted in the Israeli government’s 4 June order to begin the 1982 Lebanon War. The operation was launched on 6 June and soon became a full-scale invasion. The Israeli plan was to drive the PLO away from the Israeli border and help Bachir Gemayel’s Phalangist militia take control of south Lebanon. During the war, the IDF faced the Syrian military, Palestinian militants and various militias. The IDF engaged in urban warfare and shelled Beirut to hit PLO headquarters.

During a minuted meeting at the Defense Minister’s office at 5 pm on Thursday 16 September 1982 between US diplomats including Morris Draper and Sharon, Eitan, Saguy, and two other senior Defense Ministry staff, Draper was informed of the Israeli plan to send the Phalangists into the camps. A heated exchange followed, centering on which Lebanese force was to enter the camps. Draper insisted that it should be the regular Lebanese army. At this point Eitan broke into the discussion:

He was chief of staff at the time of the Israeli air attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor complex on 7 June 1981.

In 1981 it became public knowledge the Israel was arming and forming an alliance with the Lebanese Phalangist militia. In May it was revealed that Eitan had recently visited Jounieh several times and met with the militia leadership. The previous month, at a meeting in Damascus, the Lebanese government had come to an agreement with UNIFIL to deploy Lebanese Army soldiers into the areas that the UN forces were stationed in Southern Lebanon. This was followed by an increase of IDF activity in Lebanon which culminated in a crisis over the positioning Syrian antiaircraft missiles. Operations included a nighttime commando raid on five Palestinian targets in Southern Lebanon, 9-10 April; the shooting down of two Syrian Army helicopters in the Beqaa valley, 28 April; a commando raid near Damour in which four Libyan and two Syrian soldiers were killed, 27 May.

On 1 April 1978, Eitan was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and was appointed by Ezer Weizman to be the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.

In 1969 he was appointed head of infantry forces and later served as a division commander. As a division commander, of 36th Ugda, Brigadier General Eitan stopped the Syrian attack into the Golan Heights during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. After the war, he was appointed to commander of the northern command and promoted to the rank of Major General.

On the evening of 28 December 1968, he commanded the commando raid on Beirut airport. According to a legend which circulated among Israeli special forces soldiers, at one point during the raid, he entered the airport terminal, and finding it in a state of disorder with no security guards present, walked to a coffee shop, ordered a coffee, and paid for it in Israeli currency before leaving.

During the Six-Day War in early June 1967, as a Colonel he commanded the Paratroopers Brigade on the Gaza front. He received a severe head wound in combat while approaching the Suez Canal.

In the 1956 Suez Crisis, Major Eitan was the commander of the 890 Paratroopers battalion and participated in the 29 October parachute attack on the Mitla Pass.

In 1954, Captain Eitan became commander of a Paratroops company in Unit 101. During Operation Olive Leaves in 1955 he received a machine gun wound to his chest, while participating in a military raid into Syria. For this action he was decorated with the Medal of Courage.

Eitan was a junior officer in the Palmach, the Haganah’s elite strike force, and took part in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He fought in Jerusalem and received a head wound in the battle for the San Simon Monastery in April 1948. Later he served with the 10th Infantry Battalion in the Lachish-Negev region.

Rafael “Raful” Eitan (Hebrew: רפאל “רפול” איתן, born 11 January 1929 – 23 November 2004) was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (Ramatkal) and later a politician, a Knesset member, and government minister.

Rafael Eitan was born as Rafael Kaminsky in the moshav of Tel Adashim near Nazareth in 1929, to Eliyahu and Miriam Eitan, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants to Palestine. His father was one of the founders of the Jewish defense organization Hashomer. Rafael was raised in the community of Tel Adashim. Zvi Nishri (Orloff), a pioneer in modern physical education in Israel, was his uncle. Late in life he reportedly said that he was descended from a Subbotnik family that had served as guards to the tsar. According to Nahum Barnea, a genealogical search indicated that he had Jewish parentage on both sides.