The Israeli navy’s chief of employees, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, introduced on Tuesday that he would resign in early March, citing partly the navy’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 a minimum of a number of the nation’s leaders would in the end resign. Just a few officers have finished so, and Normal Halevi is the highest-ranking navy chief to step down to date.
“My accountability 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 Israel Katz, the Israeli protection minister, asserting his resignation.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has rebuffed calls to resign or take full-throated accountability for the disastrous failure to foretell and stop Hamas’s assault. He has mentioned he must reply “troublesome questions” after the warfare.
Normal 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 launched three feminine hostages held in Gaza because the 2023 assaults in change for 90 Palestinians, principally ladies and minors, jailed in Israel.
Citing the settlement with Hamas, Normal Halevi mentioned the timing was “now ripe” for him to go away, since hostages had begun to come back dwelling. He additionally mentioned that the Israeli navy had scored plenty of main achievements, permitting him to bow out with Israel’s “deterrence and would possibly” restored.
However he additionally conceded that Israel’s warfare goals — which embody 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 Normal Halevi, mentioned Amos Harel, the navy affairs commentator for Haaretz, an Israeli day by 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 Normal 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 intently aligns with them.
Exhausting-line authorities figures like Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, have additionally criticized navy leaders like Normal 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 warfare crimes.
In a press release, Mr. Smotrich praised Normal Halevi earlier than rapidly 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 Normal Halevi’s resignation would herald a extra hawkish mind-set among the many high navy brass.
“The approaching interval can be marked by a change within the senior navy command as a part of the preparations to renew the warfare, and this time, God keen, till full victory,” mentioned Mr. Smotrich, who opposed the cease-fire take care of 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 Normal Halevi’s announcement, one other normal — 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, Normal Halevi, 57, who assumed the navy’s high publish in early 2023, has overseen Israeli forces by way of the warfare 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, Normal 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 collection of inside inquiries into its failure on Oct. 7, 2023, earlier than his departure, Normal 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 Normal Halevi mentioned the navy’s inquiries into its complicated failures had been inherently restricted. He prompt that an unbiased investigation into the assaults was crucial, which Mr. Netanyahu has to date declined to convene.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
