Israeli army chief dismisses senior officers over failures leading to Oct. 7 events

JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL 

Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir on Sunday issued a series of disciplinary measures and dismissals against several senior officers over the military’s failure to prevent the Oct. 7, 2023 events, local media reported.

Israeli officials widely view the events as the country’s biggest intelligence and military failure, causing severe damage to Israel’s image and its army’s credibility.

According to the public broadcaster KAN, Zamir’s decisions included ending the reserve service of several retired generals, among them former Military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva, former Southern Command chief Yaron Finkelman, and former Operations Directorate chief Oded Basyuk.

These officers had already been removed from their command posts earlier, but the new measures fully terminate their reservist status.

Zamir also dismissed Gaza Division reserve commander Avi Rosenfeld, while the division’s intelligence officer was expelled from the army altogether, KAN added.

Other senior officers, including Air Force commander Tomer Bar, current Military Intelligence chief Shlomi Binder, and Navy commander David Saar Salama, received “leadership remarks”, but were not dismissed.

The broadcaster said that Haliva and former Unit 8200 commander Yossi Sariel did not attend Sunday’s hearings “due to scheduling reasons” and will face review at a later stage before their reserve service is formally terminated.

The measures come roughly two weeks after Zamir received a comprehensive investigative report prepared by retired Gen. Sami Turgeman on the failures preceding the October 2023 events.

There was no comment from the officers affected by the decisions.

Several top Israeli commanders have already resigned over the events, including then–chief of staff Herzi Halevi.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, primarily women and children, injured over 170,900, and reduced most of the enclave to rubble. The assault came to a nominal halt under a ceasefire deal that took effect on Oct. 10.

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