The IDF released its year-end statistics for 2020 on Thursday, revealing the extent of its involvement in combatting the coronavirus.
According to the official numbers, the IDF worked in a range of fields during the pandemic, including by lending its manpower, with 3,000 reservists being mobilized to fight the pandemic.
The Home Front Command established 52 support units for hospitals, handled 1,400,000 inquiries through its Citizen Information Center, fielded 7,700,000 messages through its online national emergency portal, and provided 380,000 food packages to those in need.
Across the IDF, 70,000 blood donations were made by soldiers, and the army set up two vacation villages for the recovery and rehabilitation of corona patients, along with establishing an underground corona ward at Rambam Hospital in Haifa.
In addition, the IDF set up the Alon Headquarters in the central city of Ramla in order to conduct research into the virus, eventually employing around 3,000 people and completing 236,218 epidemiological investigations.
The report also detailed other statistics from the year, including on counter-terrorism operations, border defense, missile defense and cybersecurity.
The IDF intercepted 80 rockets fired the Gaza Strip this year, or about 93% of those aimed at populated areas. In the north, 50 targets were struck by the military on the Syrian front, and ten attempts to cross the security fence alongside the border with Lebanon were thwarted.
The year saw 60 incidents of terrorist activity in the West Bank, according to the IDF report, an increase from the 51 attacks in 2019 but down from 76 incidents in 2018.
The Israeli military’s remarkable coronavirus mobilization comes as the country’s vaccination program continues apace, with over 800,000 people receiving their first vaccine shot and daily vaccinations now numbering over 150,000 per day. Those figures make Israel the number one country in the world in per capita inoculations.
Vaccinations are, in fact, happening so quickly that supplies are running low, and the government announced a two-week freeze on first inoculations on Thursday.