In ‘increasingly Islamist’ region, Israel may be headed for war, IDF intelligence chief warns

TIMES OF ISRAEL

In an ever-more-volatile Middle East, the prospect of a military confrontation between Israel and its neighbors is fast becoming a tangible possibility, the IDF’s intelligence chief warned on Monday.

“In the coming year, the State of Israel will come up against an unstable, increasingly Islamist region: a region that has been dealing with a series of crises — regional and internal — that increases the volatility of all of the players and that could lead, without prior warning, to conflagrations,” Military Intelligence Director Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi said in his annual presentation to Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz and the IDF top brass.

In introducing his department’s yearly intelligence report to the General Staff, Kochavi said: “This intelligence assessment is the fruit of a lengthy, thorough and comprehensive process of compilation, analysis and research, led by the research division and based on both the existing information-gathering capabilities of Military Intelligence and new capabilities developed in the past year.”

The report will be presented to the government after it is approved by the IDF General Staff.