Gen. Nimrod Sheffer
Gen. Nimrod ShefferAmos Gilad/Osim Tzilum

The Head of the IDF Planning Division, Gen. Nimrod Sheffer, admitted Monday that the IDF was unprepared to deal with terror tunnels Hamas and other groups utilized during Operation Protective Edge last summer. 

"We are looking back at the summer as a lesson we received," said Schaffer, speaking at the 15th Herzliya Conference on Monday. 

He promised, however, that the IDF's "underground challenge will be cracked."

"We have put unusual effort into solving technological and operational challenges," Sheffer emphasized. "We need the IDF to be flexible enough to change as rapidly as our challenges change and move ahead of them."

He added that the IDF did not always have that outlook, and "we learned unpleasant lessons from it." 

The head of the political-security department at the Defense Ministry, Major General (res.) Amos Gilad, reviewed the threats to the State of Israel - and said Iran was the foremost.

"Our security situation long ago was not so good, and we have a lot of challenges," said Gilad at the conference.

"When you look into the future, there is a storm approaching," Gilad warned. "You will not believe it until the storm comes."

"It is not deterministic, there is much to do, but the challenges here are unprecedented."

However, the head of the political-security wing does not expect a war this summer, saying that the IDF's deterrence and preparation outweigh the threat.

"The IDF has a lot of challenges, and we have to give them an answer; we are under budget and our priorities will stem from government decisions," he added.