What was Gadi Eisenkot known for in his military career?

Gadi Eisenkot played a uniquely influential role in Israel’s military strategy against nonstate actors, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He oversaw operations in the West Bank in the final two years of the second intifada (2000–05) and is credited as one of the leading architects of Israel’s “mowing the grass” military strategy, an approach to protracted conflict in which the Israel Defense Forces undertake short, large-scale operations to temporarily destroy enemy capabilities and create long periods of quiet. After the 2006 Lebanon War, he articulated the Dahieh Doctrine (or Dahiya Doctrine; named for a neighborhood just south of Beirut), which calls for the use of rapid and disproportionate force in order to establish deterrence, place pressure on decision-makers, and—like “mowing the grass”—minimize the period of combat. As the IDF chief of staff (2015–19), he was known for avoiding escalation in conflict and carrying out small campaigns between conflicts.