Last modified: 2008-07-26 by dov gutterman
Keywords: israel | idf | zahal | israel defence forces | tzvah haganah l'yisrael | haganah | irgun | hexagon (yellow) | sword (yellow) | branch: olive (yellow) | scroll (yellow) | canton: israel | star: 6 points (blue outlined) |
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![[Army Flag (Israel)]](../images/i/il-army.gif)
8:11 
image by Željko Heimer, 2 July 2006
See:
See also:
GHQ order #33.0602 is dealing with IDF unit flags. The order
deals with three types of unit flags:
1) Commands flags (sec. 7.4)
There is no descriptions of those flags. There are seven commands
that have such flags: North, Central, South, Homefront and Field
Forces Command as well the Air force and the navy. The three
territorial commands' flags are quite similar to the IDF flag but
with their emblems at lower fly and crimson background.
2) Service flags (sec. 7.6)
Flags of forces/services
Service flag is described as a flag in the service colors with
the service emblem in its top fly side. There are also decoration
flags without the emblem.
3) Unit flags
No description of those flags (usually they are the same as the
command/service flag with the unit emblem).
Interesting that according to the orders, only battalions or
equivalents will have flags and bigger units
(Regimants,Divisions,wings etc...) will have only a metal made
standard. However, all of them do have unit flags....
Therefore, officially, only those units can have unit flags:
Infantry,paratroops,communication, artillery, armour, engineers
and NAHAL battalions. Air force squadrons, navy flotillas,
military schools, pre-military boarding schools, training bases,
medical battalions, logistics battalions, ordinance battalions,
inelegance battalions, supply centers, logistic bases and
equivalent units.
All unit flags must be approved by the IDF's Symbols and Flags
Committee.
Dov Gutterman, 17 February 2005
The IDF is combined of "professional" Arms (Land,
Air and Sea), Territorial Commands (North,Central, South and
Homefront) and HQ wings. Each headed by an officer with rank of
Major General. Arms and Commands have distinctive flags. The
commands flags are crimson with national flag in canton. The
"Land Arm" is quite a new feature, replacing the
"Field Forces Command" and therefore it a quite new
flag.
Dov Gutterman, 20 November 2005 2005
This is the flag used by the army (together with the national
flag). There is also a yellow device in the lower fly end,
consisting of a sixpointed shape with a sword and an olive
branch, and a ribbon with the text TZVAH HAGANAH L'YISRAEL
that would be Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The flag is 6:11
proportioned (unlike the national flag
which is 8:11), and has yellow fringes around three edges. Here I
came onto a question: are the lengths of yellow fringes included
in this proportions, or not? A much more interesting question
would be about fringes altogether. Are they part of the flag
specification, and how obligatory etc.
Željko Heimer, 1 April 1996
Recently I was in the Army doing reserve service, and I looked in the Army Regulations for flag-related ones. I found the answer to the questions mentioned above. The size of the flag is 220 × 160 cm, the canton with the national flag is 110 × 80 cm. The fringes are 8 cm long and are not included in the 8:11 proportions. And I would say that they are obligatory if they are mentioned in the Regulations (as are fringes of some other flags). The pole is 350cm long and has the IDF badge on top, from the IDF parade. These measurements refer to the official IDF flag that was given to the army by the President of Israel during Independence Day parade in 1951.
The IDF also have an official national flag,
taken from the IDF march in Tel Aviv,
1949. Each year a different corps or command safekeeps these two
flags, and the transfer is done as part of the ceremony that
opens Independence Day. In Israel Independence Day is preceded by
Memorial Day. This year Memorial Day was Sunday, May 11.
According to Jewish law the day starts at sunset, so Independence
Day started on Sunday at sunset. There is an official ceremony
—one of the very few we have in Israel— which is held
at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. This
ceremony separates Memorial Day from Independence Day and it
starts with hoisting the flag from half-mast to full-mast. One
part is the transfer of the flags, this year from Central Command
to the Navy. Besides the two official
flags there are also flags (colours?) of the various corps,
commands etc.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 31 May 1997
Is the Israeli Army flag routinely flown outdoors on its own?
When used in military parades, etc., is it carried on its own or
with the national flag? If it is used alone, I would call it [in
vexillological terms] the war flag, i.e. a variant of
the national flag for use by the armed forces, whereas the US Army Flag is merely an organizational
flag.
Tom Gregg, 17 September 1998
Well, the IDF flag is not flown regularly. It is used mainly
in ceremonies together with the national flag. You can call it
also an organizational flag. Usually, in ceremonies the flag is
with fringes but I did not see a word about fringes in the
regulations. The regulations specify that the national flag will
be flown at all army bases, and there is no obligation to fly any
other flag. In many bases, you can see that they fly the branch
of service flag or a banner with the branch of
service colours (like black and green triangles that make a
rectangle for the armoured units) but usually no IDF flag. Nahum
Shereshevsky has got the full range of IDF flags.
Dov Gutterman, 18 September 1998
Army Regulation 33.0401 paragraph 1c2 clearly says that the
flag has an 8 cm fringe. The colour of the fringe is not
specified. Actually it should be former regulation 33.0401.
I recently found out that a number of army regulations concerning
flags were abolished and replaced by one regulation that
specifies procedures. The descriptions of the flags were moved to
Maintainance Corps Regulations. The reason given, as far as I
remember, was that these are technical/production details.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 19 September 1998
Correct, the flag is 160 cm × 220 cm with 8 cm fringes on
three sides.
Dov Gutterman, 19 September 1998
The above image of the IDF flag is wrong in several respects.
Firstly, it has an 8:11 ratio including the fringe, which implies
that the ratio is wrong. Secondly, the canton is not half
(80/160) the length of the flag.
Santiago Dotor, 8 November 2002
I lived in Israel from 1988 to 1990, and at the time there were two army flags (as I get them from memory):
Roberto Rossetti, 8 May 1998
The only red (actually, crimson) IDF flag that I know of is
the Chief of Staff flag, which Roberto
Rossetti describes as with a navy officer's device
which actually is a combination of a sword, wings, an anchor and
an olive branch, representing the entire IDF (including Army, Air
Force and Navy).
Maybe the first flag he describes is a unit flag of the General
Staff.
The third flag he describes is probably the Commander of the Navy flag. The device
is a sword with an olive branch and an anchor. It is the naval ensign with the device added.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 8 May 1998
I compared the shades of colour used in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to denote branch of service or corps, with those used in the US and British Armies to see if there are any similarities. Well, there are not. I guess there are no universal colours like the red berets of parachutists or black berets of armor. So here are the colours used in the IDF. They are used for unit flags, shoulder patches (sometimes) — and for painting things at camp! Each corps has two colours, and there are decoration flags with these. The flags are rectangular, 90x120 cm and divided diagonally by a line going from the upper hoist to the bottom fly. In the following list, the first colour is that of the lower triangle (the one on the bottom hoist).
Communications, electronics and computers corps (it is one
corps, not three — that is the official name) uses a flag
with a different pattern: dark blue with a white diagonal line.
It would be interesting to compare those to colours used in other
countries.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 23 June 1997
Yesterday was Jerusalem Day which commemorates the unification of the city in 1967. Every year there is a parade in the city, in this year there were also army units there — with their flags. It reminded me the parades that used to be on Independence Day until 1968. That was my first chance to see real army flags, since I became flag-conscious, anyway.
The field of the flags is divided diagonally between the two colours of the relevant corps. The main element of the flag is usually the shoulder patch or a similar design. Since these are awarded to brigade-level (or equivalent) formations while flags are awarded to regiment/batallion-level formations, the latter flags have additional elements to distinguish the specific battalion. I was able to see clearly only one example: Transportation Centre, which is equal to a brigade, has a flag of yellow/blue (Maintainance Corps) with their patch (elephant). There were about five flags like that, each with a combination of coloured bars, belonging I suppose to the individual bases.
The finials are in the shape of the corps emblems and attached
to them are campaign streamers. I have read about that in the
Army Regulation but it is the first time I actually saw this.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 25 May 1998
The yellow/green is infantry force in general, however all four infantry regiments have their own flags too:
Also, the Education Force is now Education and Youth Force.
Dov Gutterman, 11 November 2002
One more to add the the bicolors military flags. Anti-Aircraft
Corps (part of the Air Force) - Diagonaly divided Blue-Black
Source: author observation 15 December 2003
Dov Gutterman, 15 December 2003
The Homefront Command use diagonaly divided orange-light blue.
Dov Gutterman, 5 June 2007
There is a photo at <www.theodoresworld.net>
with the associated article:
"22/07/2006 - During an IDF forces' activity tonight in the
village of Mervachin in southern Lebanon, the forces uncovered
anti-tank missile launcher, a number of anti-tank missiles, a
machine gun, a Kalashnikov gun, and a large number of bullets.
The weapons were confiscated. Photo: Aviv Divon, IDF
Spokesperson".
The flags (two of them, behind the captured stash) are white with
a sky-blue shield in containing two crossed scimitars over a
filled-in Star of David.
Eugene Ipavec, 11 January 2008
It is the flag of Battalion 299 (a.k.a Gdud Herev =
Battalion Sword, a.k.a HaGdud HaDruzi = The Druze
Battalion) which is a regular army infantry battalion whose
soldiers and commanders are Druze and Cherkess. It was founded in
1974 to replace the former Unit 300 (Minorities Unit - est. 1948)
and it is one of most decorated units of the IDF.
Once, it was the only unit that was available for Druze soldiers.
However, since 1982 the Druze soldiers are serving in all IDF
units, but it was decided to keep this battalion as such to
maintain its special character and legacy.
Dov Gutterman, 11 January 2008
![[WWII Russian Veterans in Israel]](../images/i/il^ruvet.gif)
Attached image of some WWII Russian veterans in Israel. Anyone
know the flags or can read the inscriptions?
Jaume Ollé, 22 February 1999
It is in Hebrew, on the front flag is written Shnilkhamu
(Who fought), on the back flag is written MeBrih"am
(From USSR).
Dov Gutterman, 27 February 1999
