An Israeli soldier walks next to a pickup truck used by Palestinian militants in Sderot, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2019. 7, 2023.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
An Israeli soldier walks next to a pickup truck used by Palestinian militants in Sderot, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2019. 7, 2023.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
TEL AVIV, Israel – The head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate resigned Monday over failures surrounding the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 1. 7, the military said, becoming the first senior figure to resign over his role in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva’s resignation sets the stage for what is expected to be further fallout from Israel’s top security brass over the Hamas attack, when militants breached Israel’s border defenses, rampaged through Israeli communities without opposition for hours and They killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians. while taking approximately 250 hostages in Gaza. That attack sparked the war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its seventh month.
The military said in a statement that Haliva had asked to end his service “consistent with his leadership responsibility.” Shortly after the war, Haliva had said publicly that he bore the blame for failing to prevent the assault on the leadership of the military department responsible for providing the government and the military with intelligence advisories and daily alerts.
The army said in the statement that the chief of staff accepted Haliva’s request to resign and thanked him for his service.
Haliva, as well as other military and security leaders, were widely expected to resign in response to the glaring failures leading up to October 1. 7 and those who made it such a devastating attack.
But the timing of the resignations is unclear, because Israel is still fighting Hamas in Gaza and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the north. Tensions with Iran are also at an all-time high following attacks between the two enemies.
While Haliva and others have accepted blame for not stopping the attack, others have followed suit in short order, notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said he will answer difficult questions about his role but has not openly acknowledged any responsibility for allowing the attack to develop. .