Yossi Ben Hanan - Biography

Aluf (res.) Yossi Ben Hanan was born in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1945. His father, Michael Ben Hanan served as one of the top commanders, (Haganah) in Jerusalem.

During the Six Days War Ben Hanan was a young Israeli officer, a lieutenant, serving as the operations officer of the 7th Armored Brigade. He was featured on a famous cover of LIFE magazine after the war which showed him, as a young soldier, triumphantly clutching an AK-47 rifle while standing in the waters of the Suez Canal.

In 1973, while on his honeymoon in Nepal, then lieutenant colonel Ben Hanan learned of the start of the Yom Kippur War. Over the course of a few days, he returned to Israel and arrived on the Golan Heights on about October 8, 1973. Ben Hanan participated in the fierce fightings with the Syrians in the holding defence of the Golan Heights along with then lieutenant colonel Avigdor Kahalani, and was wounded for the first time, but refused to be evacuated and continued fighting.

On October 9, 1973, Ben Hanan took command of a scratch force of Israeli tanks that had been put together by Shmuel Askarov, one of the survivors of the decimated 188th Armored Brigade. Leading his command in a desperate battle against overwhelming numbers of Syrian T-62s, Ben Hanan restored the tactical situation but at the cost of most of his command and his own Centurion tank. Blown out of the turret when his tank was hit by a Sagger anti-tank missile, Ben Hanan lay wounded on the battlefield until he was rescued from behind enemy lines by Yonatan Netanyahu, a legendary member of the IDF's elite Sayeret Matkal and brother of future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ben Hanan received the second highest decoration, the Medal of Courage for his part in the fierce battles of the Yom Kippur War.

Yossi Ben Hanan subsequently served in the IDF. He commanded the 7th Armored Brigade, the IDF R&D department, the Israeli National Security College, and the Armored Corps. As a reservist, he attained the rank of Major General (Aluf). He is currently the head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's developing countries defense assistance division, SIBAT.