The Israeli navy’s chief of workers, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, introduced on Tuesday that he would resign in early March, citing partially the military’s failure below his command to guard Israelis from the Hamas-led assaults on Oct. 7, 2023.
The heavy toll of the assaults — 1,200 killed in Israel and 250 others taken hostage to Gaza — had lengthy include an expectation in Israel that at the least a number of the nation’s leaders would finally resign. Only some officers have completed so, and Common Halevi is the highest-ranking navy chief to step down to this point.
“My duty for the horrible failure accompanies me day-after-day, each hour and can for the remainder of my life,” he mentioned in a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Israel Katz, the Israeli protection minister, saying his resignation.
Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed calls to resign or take full-throated duty for the disastrous failure to predict and prevent Hamas’s attack. He has mentioned he must reply “tough questions” after the conflict.
Common Halevi introduced he would resign simply two days after Israel and Hamas started a 42-day truce, the primary section of a cease-fire and hostage launch deal. On Sunday, Hamas released three feminine hostages held in Gaza because the 2023 assaults in alternate for 90 Palestinians, largely girls and minors, jailed in Israel.
Citing the settlement with Hamas, Common Halevi mentioned the timing was “now ripe” for him to depart, since hostages had begun to come back house. He additionally mentioned that the Israeli navy had scored quite a lot of main achievements, permitting him to bow out with Israel’s “deterrence and may” restored.
However he additionally conceded that Israel’s conflict goals — which embrace Hamas’s destruction and the return of all of the remaining hostages — had “but to be achieved.” Within the wake of the cease-fire, Hamas forces have reasserted their management over a lot of Gaza, and many of the hostages nonetheless stay within the enclave.
Mr. Netanyahu by no means totally clicked with Common Halevi, mentioned Amos Harel, the navy affairs commentator for Haaretz, an Israeli every day. After the Hamas assaults, Mr. Netanyahu more and more tried to shift the blame for the catastrophe to the navy chief, Mr. Harel mentioned.
With Common Halevi, who was appointed by the prime minister’s centrist opponents in 2022, out of the image, Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative allies now hope for the chance to nominate a navy chief who extra carefully aligns with them.
Exhausting-line authorities figures like Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, have additionally criticized navy leaders like Common Halevi for not launching an much more aggressive marketing campaign in Gaza. Their criticism stood diametrically against accusations by human rights teams that the Israeli navy had dedicated conflict crimes.
In an announcement, Mr. Smotrich praised Common Halevi earlier than shortly noting that he had lengthy criticized the final for his “failure within the marketing campaign to remove Hamas’s civilian and governing powers.” He mentioned he hoped Common Halevi’s resignation would herald a extra hawkish mind-set among the many high navy brass.
“The approaching interval shall be marked by a change within the senior navy command as a part of the preparations to renew the conflict, and this time, God keen, till full victory,” mentioned Mr. Smotrich, who opposed the cease-fire cope with Hamas.
Extra resignations are anticipated within the coming weeks and months. Aharon Haliva, the pinnacle of Israel’s navy intelligence, resigned in 2024, as did the pinnacle of the Israeli navy’s Gaza brigade. Shortly after Common Halevi’s announcement, one other common — Yaron Finkelman, head of the navy’s southern command — mentioned he, too, would resign, though he didn’t give a date.
Over the previous 15 months, Common Halevi, 57, who assumed the navy’s high submit in early 2023, has overseen Israeli forces by means of the conflict in Gaza, a floor invasion of Lebanon, navy operations in Syria and strikes in Iran.
Israel has eradicated practically 20,000 Hamas operatives and decimated the chain of command within the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Common Halevi mentioned in a televised assertion on Tuesday night.
“The Center East has modified,” he mentioned. “The map of threats has reworked solely.”
The Israeli navy will finalize a sequence of inside inquiries into its failure on Oct. 7, 2023, earlier than his departure, Common Halevi mentioned. Mr. Katz, the protection minister, has ordered the navy to hurry up the method, which has been delayed for a number of months.
However Common Halevi mentioned the navy’s inquiries into its advanced failures have been inherently restricted. He prompt that an impartial investigation into the assaults was obligatory, which Mr. Netanyahu has to this point declined to convene.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
