Rafael "Raful" Eitan (Hebrew: רפאל "רפול" איתן; 11 January 1929 – 23 November 2004) was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (Ramatkal) and later a politician, a Knesset member, and government minister.

During Operation Olive Leaves in 1955 he received a machine gun wound to his chest, while participating in a military raid into Syria.

In the 1956 Suez Crisis, Major Eitan was the commander of the 890 Paratroopers battalion and participated in the 29 October parachute attack on the Mitla Pass.

According to a legend which circulated among Israeli special forces soldiers, at one point during the raid, he entered the airport terminal, and finding it in a state of disorder with no security guards present, walked to a coffee shop, ordered a coffee, and paid for it in Israeli currency before leaving.

As a division commander, of 36th Ugda, Brigadier General Eitan stopped the Syrian attack into the Golan Heights during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.

On 1 April 1978, Eitan was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and was appointed by Ezer Weizman to be the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.

He and Sharon demolished the Israeli town of Yamit in Sinai in April 1982 after the Egyptians refused to pay for its infrastructure.

He was chief of staff at the time of the Israeli air attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor complex on 7 June 1981.

In April 1982 he initiated a new policy in the Occupied Territories which in Israeli army slang became known by the Hebrew word tertur.

When it is necessary, use legal measures which enable imprisonment for interrogation for a period stated in the law, and release them for one or two days and then re-imprison them.After the trial of seven members of the Israeli army in December 1982, an Israeli operations officer was quoted as described tertur: "In addition to this business where you work to discover the provocateurs, you tertur the population.

[10] On 3 June 1982, Abu Nidal's militant group gravely wounded Israel's ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, in an assassination attempt.

The Palestinian militants shelled Israel's northern settlements in retaliation and resulted in the Israeli government's 4 June order to begin the 1982 Lebanon War.

The IDF achieved some impressive military results – such as wiping out the entire Syrian air defense system in the first days of the war, under the command of IAF Major general David Ivri.

The operation was designed to be limited – both in time and area – but the IDF advanced far beyond the planned "40 kilometers" under the command of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.

In concluding that Eitan was "in breach of duty that was incumbent on the Chief of Staff"[11] the Commission focused on two points: Firstly, that he did not take into consideration the "danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed" when he, with the Minister of Defence, decided to send the Phalangist militia into the refugee camps.

The commission argued that it was "common knowledge ... that there was a possibility of harm to the population in the camps at the hands of the Phalangists", particularly in the aftermath of the assassination of their leader, the newly elected President of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel.

"[14] In a book co-authored by Ze'ev Schiff, military correspondent of Ha'aretz, and Ehud Ya'ari, Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli television,[15] published a year after the Kahan Report, new information came to light, that suggested that Eitan was aware of the feelings of the Phalangists before he and Sharon decided to send the militia into the refugee camps.

A number of incidents already happened today, and it's a good thing we were there, rather than the Lebanese army, to prevent it from going further.Schiff and Ya'ari continue: "To hear Eitan tell it, the IDF was the last obstacle to a bloodthirsty rampage by the Phalange.

His background in agriculture and hobbies such as wood work and flight contributed to this image, which attracted many in the Israeli public.

Later he established an ultra-nationalist party called Tzomet, which had conservative views on defense and foreign policy but a liberal and secular domestic platform.

In the 1992 elections, Tzomet achieved a record of eight seats, but Eitan refused to join Yitzhak Rabin's coalition.