Becoming the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces soon after the 1982 Lebanon War, Moshe Levi was responsible for creating his country's “security buffer zone” in Lebanon, which was maintained until 2000.

He was a new type of military leader for Israel, personifying the changes that were taking place in society. He was the first soldier trained in Israel's army to fill its top job: his 11 predecessors had all come from the Zionist fighting groups that grew in British-ruled Palestine before Israel was established in 1948. Equally significantly, he became the first Eastern Jew to take the top army job in a country where an elite of European Jews still dominated state institutions.

Levi was popular with an Israeli public used to aloof military leaders. It warmed to his straightforward manner and reputation for visiting bases and chatting with low-ranking soldiers, and even came to know him by a nickname, “Moshe-and-a-half,” a reference to his 6ft 6in frame.

His penchant for down-to-earth relationships even crept in to the most important of meetings. In the middle of his tenure as Chief of Staff, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top military officials came from America. Word got around the kibbutz where Levi lived that he had invited them to visit, and discussion began about what kind of red-carpet treatment would be fitting. But Levi received them in shorts and sandals, and took them to the communal dining room where they waited in line and served themselves like everyone else.

Moshe Levi was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv, to parents who had moved there from Baghdad because of their Orthodox religious convictions. He began his military career in 1954 as an enlisted soldier in the prestigious Golani Infantry Brigade. He then became a paratrooper and, in the Suez War of 1956, was operations officer for his country's first parachute drop, carried out over the Mitla Pass, a mountain route in the Sinai desert that Israel captured as a result.

He served in the Six-Day War of 1967 as commanding officer of the Paratroopers Brigade. During the war of attrition that followed, he commanded the Jordan Valley Brigade. Yassir Arafat's PLO was building up a capability in the Jordan valley, and Levi oversaw the building of strongholds along the Jordan so that his soldiers could move around and counter PLO achievements.

He then rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming head of staff at Central Command in 1973, head of the General Staff Operations Division in 1974 and commander of an armoured corps division in 1976. The next year he was made overall head of the Central Command. In 1981 he became Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief of Operations, posts he held during the 1982 war. When the war finished, he was the obvious candidate for Chief of Staff, and he was appointed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1983.

He took over under the eagle eye of thousands of Israeli parents who were extremely nervous for the safe return of their children from Lebanon. Many of the 76,000 soldiers used to invade were still there, and he was successful in bringing about a smooth withdrawal.

However, there was equal pressure to secure Israel's borders, and so Levi and the defence minister Yitzhak Rabin came up with the “security buffer zone” where about 1,000 troops remained in Lebanon and battled with the PLO - much to the disapproval of critics in Israel and abroad in later years.

In addition to these challenges, Levi faced a wave of technological innovations in weaponry, and ensured that his country's arsenal was maintained and extended. He also oversaw the creation of two new brigades and streamlined parts of the army, creating the Ground Forces Command to co-ordinate all ground forces, before retiring in 1987.

Just as Levi broke the mould at the outset of his career, he did so at its end. The standard move for top military brass in Israel is in to politics. “He was offered, and encouraged to take, many positions in politics including Mayor of Jerusalem,” his brother, Baruch, claimed. Levi, though, chose instead the traditional Zionist dream of working the land. Overnight, he went from commanding thousands of tanks to taking responsibility for a single tractor, ploughing the wheat fields on his kibbutz.

He then became convinced that the often-poor towns in the north and the south of the country would have greater financial opportunities if they could have faster access to large cities. He also wanted to see city-dwellers getting closer to nature and visiting the countryside.

Accordingly, from 1997 he headed a new committee to build a highway spanning the country from north to south. Highway 6 was to allow people from outlying areas to access big cities without driving through them, and give people from cities fast access to rural areas.

Ironically, this project brought him more controversy than his position as Chief of Staff. He faced bitter opposition from green activists and some politicians, who delayed work, and much of the route is still under construction.

Levi undertook much of the work for the highway from a wheelchair, as a stroke in 2002 had left him with limited mobility. He is survived by his wife and five children.

Lieutenant-General Moshe Levi, Chief of Staff, Israel Defence Forces, 1983-87, was born on April 18, 1936. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage on January 8, 2008, aged 71