Yael Grossman is one of only seven female brigadier-generals in the IDF.
Although the army has gotten better in recent years [in that regard], breaking certain glass ceilings at the highest levels is still notoriously hard, so anyone like Grossman who makes the cut is formidable, and it is evident immediately in the confidence that she exudes.
In a recent interview with the Magazine, Brig.-Gen. Grossman, commander of the IDF intelligence division LOTEM, discussed her unit’s impact on Iran, tunnel warfare, precision warfare, humanitarian aid, Oct. 7 resilience, her path as a woman toward breaking barriers, and a variety of other issues.
The LOTEM Technology Division is the army’s largest software house. It is responsible for increasing the IDF’s ability to streamline resources, cut through red tape, provide operational offensive and defensive support, and improve services for recruits and career officers.
Iran
Discussing increased cyber threats from Iran, which the computing system unit MAMRAM and other parts of LOTEM and IDF intelligence must confront, Grossman said that Israel faces many challenges, and that it is “not always only directly from them [Tehran] but often “from their proxies – where there is regular friction [attempted cyberattacks].
“There are great people in [the IDF’s] information technology defense, and they are extremely active, without people hearing about all the obstacles they must overcome,” she said in praise of Israel’s anonymous cyber defenders, many of whom work for her.
She also said that the challenge of defending the IDF’s ever-expanding digital surface area has intensified significantly since Oct. 7, given the many different new potential attack vectors brought about by the massive expansion of the cloud to handle so much new data related to the war.
“When you build a building, you should construct the defenses into the foundation from the start. Then it is not a question of building defenses from scratch, but how does one scale the defenses up to keep pace with the growth of the digital surface area,” said Grossman, explaining the IDF’s success in its cyberdefense.
She said the large influx of reservists has also been a huge help. “Many of them are senior managers within the hi-tech or cyber industries, so they have capabilities to accomplish many tasks at an incredibly fast rate,” even compared to bright, but younger, mandatory service members of LOTEM.
Tunnels
Regarding assisting the IDF in overcoming obstacles in tunnel warfare, the LOTEM commander said her staff “are always there. We have been very substantial in ensuring the reliability of communications [underground] and have built [new kinds] of data infrastructure which can manage additional” kinds of technology needed for maintaining large-scale operations in tunnels in places like Khan Yunis.
In the digital engineering realm, Grossman said LOTEM “built platforms that can handle everything at once. The architecture builds the language and adapts to whatever challenges we have met during the war,” given the extra challenges of maintaining both communications and location tracking of troops and enemy forces’ altercations underground.
Precision warfare
Another area where Grossman said LOTEM shines is facilitating precision warfare against Hamas.
“The cloud can be used for real-time operations, for after-the-fact evaluations, and for ongoing periodic tracking of progress of certain issues related to the war,” she said.
But there is “always still a human being, an information security officer, managing things behind the scenes. The machines we have built best empower connecting the human officer to the relevant networked applications,” to make sure that legal and ethical concerns are addressed.
LOTEM, said Grossman, is very significant for the IDF “in the world of precision firepower targeting and operations and in the world of general information support.”
The disruption and creative friction brought about by the current war, while terrible in the amount of death and destruction it has incurred, has led to tremendous new digital advances, said Grossman.
Speaking at a recent conference in Tel Aviv, Grossman talked about how artificial intelligence has helped the IDF to manage its firepower and force distribution at whole new levels during the war with Hamas.
AI was used on a large scale during the May 2021 Gaza conflict, but now, she said, AI is being used on a much larger scale to run the invasion of Gaza with multiple full-fledged divisions coordinated with artillery, tanks, aircraft, drones, and the navy.
In one example, LOTEM’S big data collection and analysis capabilities saved hundreds of Israeli mourners at a funeral on October 17 from a likely Hamas rocket attack.
According to LOTEM, on October 17 the extended Zohar family was due to hold a funeral service in Rishon Lezion for family members killed by Hamas at Nahal Oz during the invasion earlier that month.
This was at a time when Hamas was also still firing hundreds of rockets per day, including large numbers on Rishon Lezion.
LOTEM analysts broke down Hamas’s rocket firing patterns, which they had gathered using new big data digital gathering tools and determined where the terror group would most likely need to place its rocket launchers to hit the funeral procession.
In fact, LOTEM told the Magazine that aspects of the analysis led to concrete attacks by the IDF against Hamas targets, which otherwise could very well have caused “a disaster” for the mass funeral procession.
Aid
In the area of humanitarian aid to civilians, Grossman said that all information assists with a variety of jobs, such as distributing information, and humanitarian concerns for both Israeli and Palestinian civilians, as well as efficiently distributing warnings to limit threats from Israel’s enemies.
This can lead to decisions about the best place to move aid trucks in Gaza.
Oct. 7
Addressing how badly Oct. 7 disabled her division’s ability to function when so many IDF technological systems and sensors failed, she said, “Even before Oct. 7, the concept was to be built for quick disaster recovery capabilities. Literally, none of the critical assets exists only in one location. Oct. 7 did help crystallize the need to create even more redundancies and helped focus on specific issues where additional redundancies were necessary.”
In one training exercise, LOTEM needed to presume that its main network was down, and it needed to restore the network and IDF services back up rapidly. Grossman said that LOTEM passed the test almost seamlessly.
Nationally, she said they succeeded in maintaining virtually all services throughout Oct. 7.
Calling up reservists; identifying bodies
Following Oct. 7, the military suddenly multiplied threefold in personnel, logistics needs, arms, and computer and digital needs.
This was a truly unprecedented event for reservists, and LOTEM managed “to summon all of them immediately using digital means.” This is profoundly significant, considering the IDF in October said it had called up 360,000 reservists.
Next, the division has also had to greatly expand in the area of identifying the remains of soldiers, including quickly sharing personal medical data regarding teeth and other parts of the body with the necessary officials.
“This is very complex and involves cooperation with many different IDF units. LOTEM helps make all the personal medical data available to soldiers handling the body identification issue on the front lines.”
Wider introduction of what LOTEM does
Beyond all of these specific distinctive tasks, LOTEM is “the division for storing IDF information. We are one small shop for the entire world of digital information. We are very multidisciplinary.
“Storage and infrastructure for the digital arena is different from other arenas. Bytes are built up, and they move around from one place to another. For this... there needs to be all of the online infrastructure from the fiber cables to the content to the third layer of routing and guiding the computer bytes. This is super important.
“We have the largest fiber cables in Israel. Also, the scope of online data is the largest online site in Israel,” she said.
Further, Grossman stated, “Since the advent of the iPhone and the cellular age, how people conduct themselves in the world has changed. We are the largest cellphone provider in Israel. We use Partner and others, and we also build capabilities.”
Grossman said that more than ever, she and other officers can manage the war from their secure mobile phones and from the IDF’s privately built clouds.
In fact, the LOTEM commander said that her staff has created special spin-off clouds just for the current war to handle the immense amounts of new data constantly streaming in from the various fronts.
Some of the work on cellphones and mobile data Grossman could not discuss due to information security concerns. She noted that within the IDF’s different clouds, “There are different classification and access levels. This capability is very significant.”
Asked if LOTEM has a role in moving data between the front and headquarters, she said, “There are broad regular efforts, and the Internet enables transferring lots of data and many capabilities.”
LOTEM has three battalions that are spread out in different parts of the country. Anywhere LOTEM is needed by its various IDF “client” forces, it makes sure to have a closer physical presence, she said.
Some specific sub-units she discussed were Maof, a sub-unit of LOTEM that deals with engineering, Internet infrastructure, mobile devices needs, and satellite and visual intelligence, including videos.
MAMRAM guards the IDF’s central cloud hardware systems and provides broader cyberdefense services to the IDF.
Shahar serves as the digital world for people, resources, and logistics. There is also a school for IDF computers training. She said that the IDF works with MAFAT and the Defense Ministry on projects such as quantum computing.
There are also multiple other units that deal with communications and other issues.
Female power
Grossman is not the only female power in LOTEM. Four of the five colonels making up the intelligence division are women. “Every day in LOTEM is International Women’s Day,” said Grossman, adding that there is also a large number of lieutenant-colonels and majors. This makes LOTEM one of the leading units in the IDF for female officers.
In addition, she developed SheShark, a program that provides female officers in LOTEM with a support system of senior private sector mentors, classes emphasizing leadership qualities, and inspirational tools and ideas.
She said the training from this program “goes beyond LOTEM and builds technological leadership throughout the IDF, which in turn eventually also benefits all of the State of Israel” in the technology field when IDF-trained personnel join the private sector.
Grossman’s personal story
She is originally from Petah Tikva.
Grossman always “loved to learn” and was admitted as a young student to the advanced Bar-Ilan math program.
When she joined the IDF, she was first trained in IDF communications, and then took the officers’ course.
She has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tel Aviv University and a master’s in business management from Ben-Gurion University.
Out of 25 IDF intelligence technology course candidates, she was the only woman and the first woman to last and rise up through the ranks.
But she said, “I worked hard, and then also helped other future female officers. After that, classes always had multiple women.”
In various roles, she was an information security officer, and also performed roles in engineering, content development, technological platform development, satellite technology, and cyberdefense training.
Most recently, she became the head of the MAMRAM cyberdefense unit in 2020; and in 2022 and 2023, she became the commander of LOTEM in the division’s different iterations.
Being that she got married in her university years, her children are already older, so when she wakes up daily at 5 or 6 a.m., it is not to drop off kids but to do some kind of exercise, be it ballet, jazz dance, or some other physical activity.
She started playing basketball at a young age because at 16, she was the tallest in her class and was very successful in grabbing rebounds from missed shots.
Now that she runs a variety of operations, she moves around a lot, “which is part of leading things in a very large organization.”
If in the past, the IDF used special radio systems and other older platforms for issuing warnings about rocket fire and for coordinating attacks, Grossman’s updated version of LOTEM in 2023-2024 is using digital platforms for “supporting military operations all the time.”