Israel’s military intelligence chief resigns for failing to prevent Hamas attack

The head of Israel’s military intelligence, Aharon Haliva. He is the first senior commander to announce that he is leaving his position due to his responsibility for not preventing the Hamas massacre in Israeli territory on October 7. Haliva, a major general, has also requested in his resignation the creation of a state commission to investigate the worst attack suffered by the country in its 75 years of history and which was the trigger for the current war in the Gaza Strip. Haliva presented his resignation to the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, on Monday. The resigning soldier will nevertheless continue in office until a replacement is found.

Since that October day, the country has been not only engaged in a war with an uncertain outcome for more than six months, but also debating and trying to understand the mistakes that led it to suffer the attack organized from within Gaza. After the massacre, the Israeli army already opened an investigation whose conclusions are not expected before June. Different sources have assured that the Israeli authorities had been warned for months that Hamas was preparing an attack, so it could not be considered surprising.

More than half a year later, the war is advancing and pressure is multiplying in the streets against the country’s highest authorities, especially against the political establishment headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Unlike the senior military and secret services commanders, he has never assumed any responsibility for what happened. A majority of Israelis, 62%, understand that the time has come for those behind the errors to resign, according to the result of a survey published this Monday by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI, according to its acronym in English).

“The Intelligence Division was not up to the task entrusted to us. Throughout my duties, I learned that together with authority a great responsibility is assumed,” Haliva acknowledges in his resignation letter, according to the newspaper. Haaretz. In the letter he calls for a commission “that can investigate and find out in an exhaustive, thorough, exhaustive and precise manner all the factors and circumstances that led to these difficult events.”

After months waiting for the assumption of responsibilities with actions and not words, some see the step taken by Haliva as the trigger for a chain of resignations. “Many others are expected to follow him from the ranks of the army and secret services, such as the Minister of Defense. And, then, elections,” understands Kobi Michael, an Israeli analyst at the Institute for the Study of National Security (INSS) and the Misgav Institute. Michael believes Haliva would have left sooner if it had been up to him. Michael remembers that he “wanted to resign in the first days of the war, but he was asked to stay to support the troops and rebuild intelligence and direct it during the war. I guess he feels this is the right time” to leave the position.

Responsibility without resignation

Other military and intelligence commanders have previously acknowledged their responsibility, although without resigning from their position. This happened with the head of the Armed Forces, General Herzi Halevi, on October 12, five days after the Hamas massacre. He already then said that what happened had to be investigated. “The Israeli army is responsible for the security of the country and its citizens, and on Saturday morning, in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, we failed to get it under control. We will learn, we will investigate, but now is the time for war,” Halevi said in public.

Four days later, it was the turn of Ronen Bar, head of the internal secret services, the Shin Bet. “Unfortunately, on Saturday we could not provide sufficient warning to thwart the attack,” he commented in a letter reported by local media. “The responsibility for this is mine,” and “there will be time for investigations. “Now we are fighting,” Bar added.

To Haliva, as to an important part of a country that celebrated the festival of Sukkot (known as the Feast of Tabernacles), on October 7 caught him on vacation in Eilat, on the coast of the Red Sea. It is there that, around three in the morning, about three hours before the attack, he was warned of the imminent offensive, but he thought that Hamas was carrying out a “drill” and did not consult the alert with his superiors. as published in the newspaper Times of Israelwhich gives it a prominent role.

The resignation of the head of military intelligence comes at a time when, politically, the role of the prime minister is increasingly in question. The demonstrations are multiplying not only so that Netanyahu decisively bets on reaching an agreement to bring back the hostages, but also so that he resigns and calls elections. Since the current race broke out, it has been suggested that this will mark the end of the current prime minister’s era. In the first weeks of the race, former general Giora Eiland and Ofer Shelah, an analyst and former parliamentarian for the centrist Yesh Atid party, told Morning Express that they do not see Netanyahu taking the reins of Israel after the war.

Although it is now that he steps aside, ten days after the attack General Haliva accepted his guilt and recognized that the origin of the current war stems from Israel’s error, although, behind that hole in intelligence, there were hundreds of militiamen Hamas who murdered some 1,200 people and kidnapped some 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has already killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza. “We failed in our most crucial mission, and as head of military intelligence, I bear full responsibility for this failure,” he said, according to statements now recalled by the newspaper. Yedioth Ahronoth. “Military intelligence under my command did not warn about the Hamas terrorist attack,” he added.

In the midst of the current war situation, Netanyahu is trying to resist under a complicated balance due to the heterogeneous government coalition on which he underpins his mandate. He is often accused of making decisions not so much in the direction of ending the war or resolving the crisis for the more than 130 captives remaining in the Strip, but of acting to try to safeguard his position. This criticized management has even led him to clash with his most faithful ally, the United States.

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