The Military Intelligence Directorate of the Israel Defense Forces has tasked a special team with updating the national intelligence assessment presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other decision-makers in mid-January. The decision was prompted by the novel coronavirus crisis that has sent shockwaves across the Middle East. The annual intelligence assessment attempts to analyze and forecast the strategic threats facing the country on all fronts. With the COVID-19 epidemic having spread throughout the region (barring a few relatively unaffected pockets such as Yemen), the crisis is clearly no longer only health and socioeconomic in nature. It has spilled over into the military-defense arena.

Israel is evidently the only state in the world whose security and intelligence services are playing a significant role in the effort to eradicate the virus. Mossad chief Yossi Cohen heads a multi-agency team coordinating emergency acquisition efforts for respirators, swabs, protective equipment and more around the world.

At the Sheba Medical Center, the largest such facility in the Middle East, a specially created nerve center amasses, reviews and analyzes all the information about the virus published around the world. It is staffed by some 400 IDF intelligence experts and analysts working around the clock under the command of the Intelligence Directorate’s technological branch. They study the information pouring in and the cumulative expertise compiled around the globe, analyze and integrate it and translate it into strategy papers that serve the decision-makers.

The directorate’s most prestigious units have also been mobilized at their highest capacity to carry out additional missions. The elite Sayeret Matkal commando force has been mobilized for the nationwide coronavirus testing effort, taking advantage of its skills and flexibility for the unusual mission. The legendary signal intelligence Unit 8200 has been roped in to help monitor and control the tens of thousands of tests conducted each week. The Military Intelligence Directorate's technological units have developed a ventilator in compliance with medical parameters and requirements. It has already manufactured 200 units and an additional 1,000 are on the way. The military tech department has also come up with numerous gadgets, such as monitors for remote control operations of COVID-19 wards including ventilators, sophisticated personal protection equipment and designated ambulances.