The head of the Israeli military’s intelligence branch has resigned over his unit’s failures during the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, who has served in the IDF for 38 years, is the first senior military figure to resign over the October 7 attacks, when Hamas fighters stormed the border into Israel.
“It was decided that MG Aharon Haliva will end his position and retire from the IDF, once his successor is appointed in an orderly and professional process,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement on Monday.
Following the attack that caught Israel off-guard, Haliva admitted to an “intelligence failure” by his unit in not detecting Hamas’ plans.
“The intelligence directorate under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with. I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night. I will carry the horrible pain of the war with me forever,” Haliva wrote in his resignation letter, which was provided by the military.
Haliva, as well as other military and security leaders, were widely expected to resign in response to the glaring failures that led up to Oct. 7 and the scale of its ferocity.
But the timing of the resignations has been unclear because Israel is still fighting Hamas in Gaza and battling the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the north. Tensions with Iran are also at a high following attacks between the two enemies. Some military experts have said resignations at a time when Israel is engaged on multiple fronts is irresponsible and could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
Shortly after the attack, Haliva had publicly said that he shouldered the blame for not preventing the assault as the head of the military department responsible for providing the government and the military with intelligence warnings and daily alerts.
The Hamas attack, which came on a Jewish holiday, caught Israel and its vaunted security establishment entirely off guard. Israelis’ sense of faith in their military — seen by most Jews as one of the country’s most trustworthy institutions — was shattered in the face of Hamas’ onslaught. The resignation could help restore some of that trust.
The attack set off the devastating war that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the local health ministry. The ministry’s count doesn’t distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but it says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women. The fighting has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities, and driven 80% of the territory’s population to flee to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.