Two opposing trends are substantially altering Israel’s national security picture.
On one hand, the IDF has significantly postponed presenting its probes of the October 7 failure to the public, leading top dissenting officials to leak much of the key findings of those probes.
This trend would seem to be about accountability and reform in the IDF with the aim of preventing additional October 7-level disasters.
On the other hand, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi is remaking the IDF with crucial appointments to the high command and elsewhere, despite expectations by many that he would resign in June or August once the military published its probes into October 7.
But Halevi has held back the probes from being published, the IDF chief believes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will succeed at holding onto power for an indefinite period of time, and therefore, does not wish the prime minister to be able to replace him until the current war is more decisively wrapped up.
Regarding the October 7 probes, the date for publishing them has evolved multiple times.
First, they were due to be published in June. Then, on a rolling basis over July and August.
However, heavy criticism of the July 11 probe into the battle of Beeri and the fact that it was presented before a broader presentation of the intelligence and doctrinal failures that led to October 7 led Halevi to push off all the probes’ publication.
In addition, Shlomi Binder replaced Aharon Haliva as IDF intelligence chief only on August 21.
It is likely that he has been weighing in on the probe of the intelligence failures that Haliva had managed until then.
Another possibility for the delay is Halevi may feel more pressure to resign once her probes are presented, and he wants to put off that turning point.
But delaying the probes has angered many officials who want those who failed the most to be publicly held accountable and forced to resign if they have not already.
Earlier leaks regarding the probes of the battles of Kfar Aza and Nir Oz showed that the reaction time and coordination of reinforcement forces was even slower and more incompetent than it had been for Beeri.
In Beeri, the problem was that only around 13-25 IDF forces got there in the early hours of the battle and that large forces arrived to start overpowering Hamas only in the 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. range on October 7.
In Nir Oz, leaks have indicated that by the time the IDF arrived to assist, Hamas had already killed whoever it decided to kill and taken the hostages back to Gaza.
What is most disturbing, though, about the latest leaks is that they not only show a larger scale breakdown of the border fence and defenses than was previously known but also signal problems with the military’s ability to probe itself.
Initially, after October 7, the IDF said Hamas had penetrated the border in 29 different places.
However, after a much more comprehensive and meticulous review, the IDF updated that the border had been penetrated in 60 places by around 3,000 Gazans.
The latest estimates from unpublished probes, first reported by Channel 12 but also confirmed by the Jerusalem Post, were that there were 119 penetrations by around 6,000 Gazans.
This not only doubles the size of the failure in terms of the border breaking down on October 7. It also doubles the size of the forces which IDF intelligence missed, and it raises questions about why the IDF’s second and meticulous review of the issue was so much lower than the reality.
Pressed on the issue, on the record the IDF refused to engage, saying it will only get into the numbers when the probe is published.
But the whole point is that Halevi has changed his own deadlines twice, and has set no new deadline for publishing the probes.
The numbers are all there
The IDF simply does not want to discuss them yet.
Until the IDF explains how even its second careful review got the border picture so wrong, there will be doubts about whether even the third version and final probes are accurate or whether the chaos of that day was so great, that the military will never fully know how bad the situation was.
Besides Binder, Halevi is changing the face of the rest of the IDF.
Avi Bluth replaced Yehuda Fuchs as the Central Commander for the West Bank a couple of months ago.
Dan Goldfus is about to replace Saar Tzur regarding force buildup and strategy for the Northern Command.
The actual chief of the Northern Command, Uri Gordon, will likely replace Amir Baram as deputy IDF chief sometime in the coming months.
This will also free up Halevi to appoint a new chief of the Northern Command.
Publicly, the IDF disputed that Baram will step down, but even the public statement only said he would continue for some period of months.
The Post has learned that Halevi and Baram have had interpersonal problems for years, long pre-dating their current positions.
In fact, sources have told the Post that Halevi only agreed to Baram becoming the IDF deputy chief as part of a complex compromise with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
There was a desire by some to promote former air force chief Amikam Norkin to become the Director-General of the Defense Ministry.
Halevi opposed having Norkin in this key post so strongly, that he agreed to Eyal Zamir – his rival in the race for IDF chief – becoming the Director-General of the Defense Ministry, though he only received this concession on condition that he accept Baram as his deputy chief.
Zamir is expected to succeed Halevi whenever the current IDF chief does resign, given that he was Netanyahu’s first pick for the position had he been prime minister when the post opened up (Benny Gantz had control as defense minister at the time under Yair Lapid as prime minister.)
Halevi also placed Barak Hiram as the new Gaza Division Chief in place of Avi Rosenfeld and has made many other appointments changing the leadership of key divisions and brigades across the IDF.
Also, Unit 8200 chief Yossi Sariel is expected to resign in either the coming weeks or months, which will let Halevi continue to change the leadership of military intelligence along with his prior appointment of Binder.
Several months ago, Halevi had already replaced the IDF intelligence analysis chief Amit Saar, and the IDf Southern Command Intelligence Chief.
An increasing number of current and former IDF officials are criticizing Halevi for changing over the IDF when many think he should have resigned months ago.
Even opposition figures Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, both also former IDF chiefs, have demanded he resign.
They are demanding he resign even knowing that Netanyahu – who they do not trust – will pick his replacement.
All of this means that radical changes are occurring to Israel’s national security structure, but lacking consensus and lacking transparency about October 7.
Halevi is credited by most with doing an excellent job of managing the war since October 7.
However, the long term negative consequences of these processes regarding the probes and the appointments could eventually destabilize the IDF and continue to undermine the general public’s faith.
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