Brigadier-General Motti Almoz has replaced Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai as the chief spokesman of the IDF and head of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.
The Spokesperson’s Unit is more involved than ever in IDF operations, Mordechai said. The unit’s soldiers are part of many other units, including some of the most remote IDF posts.
Under Mordechai’s command, combat-trained cameramen joined some combat units in order to document their activities from the front lines. He also encouraged heavier involvement with the “new media,” such as social networks.
“Alongside this deployment, a visual ‘war room’ has been set up that gets the benefit of all of the IDF’s information-gathering abilities in real time,” he said.
Mordechai thanked those who have worked for him over the past two years. “This isn’t the Spokesperson’s Unit – we are the Spokespeople,” he declared.
Almoz then spoke. “I am aware of the importance that words have, of the power of a story,” he said. “I understand the extent to which they can develop… I promise to put the truth first, to keep the IDF morally clean… to take the moral path.”
Recent polls show that the IDF remains Israel’s most trusted institution, with 90.9% of Jewish Israelis saying they trust their nation’s army.