At the age of 16, he joined the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He served as a platoon commander during the 1929 Palestine riots; in which he was injured. He served from 1936 in the permanent apparatus of the Haganah in the Haifa area, and held command and training positions in the area, and later in the northern Galilee area. In 1943 he instructed the officers' course of the Haganah organization in Joara. In 1944 he was appointed commander of the Northern Galilee. Later he was a senior staff officer in the General Staff. He was a partner in formulating the idea of the Field Force (Hish) and the combat theory of 'offensive defense'. On the eve of the outbreak of the War of Independence, he served as a planning officer at the General Staff.
Tzvi Ayalon (on the right) with Yosef Avidar, 1949
IDF service
In January 1948, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff, and with the establishment of the IDF in May of that year, he continued in his position, with the rank of Major General (Aluf). At the same time as his position as Deputy Chief of Staff, he was the commander of the Third Front (today the Central Command), which commanded the forces that fought in and around Jerusalem.
After the war he was responsible for the creation of the IDF parade in July 1949, which took place after the failure of the parade that did not march on the Independence Day.[4]
