He served in the Special Night Squads under Orde Wingate during the Arab revolt in Palestine and later lost an eye to a sniper in a raid on Vichy forces in Lebanon during World War II.

One of his military heroes was the British pro-Zionist intelligence officer Orde Wingate, under whom he served in several Special Night Squads operations.

On 3 October 1939, he was the commanding instructor for Haganah Leader's courses held at Yavniel when two British Palestine Police officers discovered a quantity of illegal rifles.

Leading a group of 43 men through Wadi Bira, early the following morning, 12 to 15 Arab members of the Transjordan Frontier Force arrested them.

[9] Dayan was assigned to a small Australian-led reconnaissance task force, which also included fellow Palmach members and Arab guides,[10] formed in preparation for the Allied invasion of Syria and Lebanon and attached to the Australian 7th Division.

Using his home kibbutz of Hanita as a forward base, the unit frequently infiltrated Vichy French Lebanon, wearing traditional Arab dress, on covert surveillance missions.

[12] Dayan wrote in his autobiography: "I reflected with considerable misgivings on my future as a cripple without a skill, trade, or profession to provide for my family."

To put a stop to the out-of-control looting, he ordered that anything that could be used by the army be stored in Haganah warehouses and the rest be distributed amongst Jewish agricultural settlements.

[17] On 20 June 1948, two men from one of his companies were killed in a confrontation with Irgun members trying to bring weapons ashore from the Altalena at Kfar Vitkin.

[18] On 23 July 1948, on David Ben-Gurion's insistence over General Staff opposition, Dayan was appointed military commander of Jewish-controlled areas of Jerusalem.

[21] Following the 17 September 1948 assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, it was over 20 hours before he imposed a curfew over Jewish Jerusalem and began arresting members of Lehi, the underground organisation believed to be responsible.

In September 1949, despite being involved in these negotiations, Dayan recommended to Ben-Gurion that the army should be used to open the road to Jerusalem and gain access to the Western Wall and Mount Scopus.

In September 1950, several thousand more were driven from the demilitarized zone at Al-Ajua[32] During 1950, the remaining population of al-Majdal were transferred to the Gaza Strip[33][34] In a notorious incident on 31 May 1950, the army forced 120 Arabs across the Jordanian border at 'Arava.

On 20 October 1951, two Battalion 79 (7th Brigade) companies destroyed several houses and an ice factory in eastern Gaza City; dozens were killed and injured.

Faced with demands of a 20% cut in budget and the discharge of 6,000 IDF members, Yigael Yadin resigned as Chief of the General Staff in November 1952, and was replaced by Mordechai Maklef.

Dayan proposed that: All that is required is to find an officer, even a captain would do, to win his heart or buy him with money to get him to agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population.

[48]Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, shocked by the officers' indifference to neighbouring Lebanon, turned down the plan as divorced from reality.

The General Staff order stated "temporarily to conquer the village of Qibya – with the aim of blowing up houses and hitting the inhabitants".

This ended with Lavon's resignation over who ordered the sabotage operation in Egypt, which led to the trial of a number of Egyptian Jews, two of whom were executed.

On the night of 28 February 1955, Operation Black Arrow (Mivtza Hetz Shahor) was launched against an Egyptian Army camp south of Gaza City.

[63] On 2 November, al Sabha, close to the DMZ, was attacked, in Operation Volcano (Mivtza Ha Ga'ash), killing 81 Egyptian soldiers.

On the night of 25 September, following a number of incidents including the machine-gunning of large gathering at Ramat Rachel in which four Israelis were killed, and the murder of a girl southwest of Jerusalem, the 890th Battalion attacked the Husan police station and nearby Arab Legion positions close to the armistice lines.

When tensions began to rise in early 1967, however, Eshkol appointed the charismatic and popular Dayan defence minister to raise public morale and bring Rafi into a unity government.

[70][failed verification] Moshe Dayan was covering the Vietnam War to observe modern warfare up close after he left political life.

Following the heavy defeats of the first two days, Dayan's views changed radically; he was close to announcing 'the downfall of the "Third Temple"' at a news conference, but was forbidden to speak by Meir.

[91][92] The Telem party won two seats in the 1981 elections, but Dayan died shortly thereafter, in Tel Aviv, from a massive heart attack.

Following his death, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, arranged that the yearlong memorial service of kaddish be recited in honor of Dayan.

"[97] Dayan combined a kibbutznik's secular identity and pragmatism with a deep love and appreciation for the Hebrew Bible,[98] the Jewish people and the land of Israel—but not an orthodox religious identification.

[99][100] Dayan was an author and described himself as an amateur archaeologist, the latter hobby leading to significant controversy, as his amassing of historical artifacts, often with the help of his soldiers, seemed to be in breach of a number of laws.

[101] American science-fiction writer Poul Anderson published his novel Ensign Flandry at the time when Moshe Dayan's international renown and admiration for him in Israel were at their highest.