In a poetic context, it may seem reasonable to connect the timing of the October 7 IDF probes with the ongoing debate over their implications for political and defense power brokers, particularly in relation to the conclusion of a hostage deal with Hamas.
However, from a common-sense standpoint, these events should be entirely unrelated.
And yet, there is no question that the delay in putting out the IDF probe results has been inextricably related to when a hostage deal with Hamas would be closed.
Why shouldn’t they be related, and what should have happened?
A state commission of inquiry, including both the political and defense class as well as a separate IDF probe more narrowly focused on defense errors, should have started around mid-November 2023 when Israel handily defeated Hamas in northern Gaza and racked up its largest numbers of kills of Hamas fighters.
At that point, Israel had not only been hit back at Hamas for its October 7 invasion but had made it physically impossible – certainly for the coming years – for Hamas to reinvade the Jewish state.
Another point when all of the commissions and probes could have started would have been early February after the IDF had mostly defeated Hamas in Khan Yunis and central Gaza, leaving only Hamas’s four Rafah battalions (out of an original 24 battalions) intact.
There was very little significant fighting by the IDF from February until early May, when it invaded Rafah.
In March, the IDF finally started probing itself, advertising that the probe results would be issued in May or June.
At a later point, the IDF changed the deadline date for issuing the reports to July-August.
Then, after the issuing of the first October 7 report, the report on the battle of Beeri, the probes were indefinitely delayed and completely fell off the radar screen.
No explanation was offered in real-time, but after the ceasefire with Hezbollah was reached in November 2024, the IDF started talking about finishing the probes sometime around February 2025, with some ambiguity about when they would be publicly published.
Then came Defense Minister Israel Katz’s statement on December 19 that he was freezing all military appointments until the IDF issued the probes and that the results of the probe must be issued by the end of January.
At first, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi signaled that he would work hard to comply.
However, as Katz has gone out of his way more in public to attack Halevi and frustrate him for the remainder of his term in office, Halevi has left some ambiguity about whether he will comply or not.
Against the background of all of this, many expect Halevi to resign when he issues the probes in order to show that he takes partial responsibility for October 7.
IDF probe results unclear
So here we are in mid-January, unclear about when the IDF probe results will be issued, with not even a start date for a state inquiry into the government’s handling of October 7 and a lack of clarity about Halevi’s future.
The missing piece in all of this is the hostage deal.
There was a first hostage deal in mid-November 2023, but when the continuation of that deal fell apart, and the majority of the government and the IDF wanted to continue the war against Hamas by invading Khan Yunis, any idea of moving forward with an IDF probe of October 7 fell by the wayside.
Likewise, the first time that the IDF started the probe process in March was not too long after the war cooled off, with some greater expectations that Hamas might agree to a hostage deal to avoid the IDF invading Rafah.
The probes were delayed again from May-June to July-August when the IDF got deep into Rafah after hostage negotiations failed.
At this point in July, the dynamic changed.
‘Government should end the war’
Halevi, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, and Mossad Director David Barnea all went public that they thought the government should end the war – especially given that Hamas’s last organized battalions in Rafah were now beaten – in exchange for the hostages.
A number of these and other top defense officials publicly accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging the hostage negotiations in order to keep his coalition partners happy, who wanted to continue the war for a more indefinite period.
Most defense officials believed Netanyahu would eventually let a deal happen and Halevi was preparing to resign in September.
Also, the IDF issued its first October 7 report in July on the battle of Beeri.
The middle management and some top officers in the IDF rebelled against Halevi for issuing the report with criticism against some of the field commanders in a vacuum that did not equally criticize the highest echelons of the IDF, including the IDF chief himself.
Halevi decided that the military could not roll the probes out one piece at a time but would need to put them all out at once, which delayed the results.
Committed to getting the hostages released
More importantly, Halevi was committed to getting the hostages released before he stepped down.
He views this as his personal responsibility dating back to October 7.
Put differently, if there had been a hostage deal in July-August – as most of the defense establishment believes there could have been – Halevi might have issued the probe results then or shortly after and also resigned around that time.
With no hostage deal and believing that Netanyahu’s next IDF chief might not be as committed to releasing the hostages – even at the cost of ending the war – Halevi put off the probes again and his resignation date.
Also, in the middle of all of this, Netanyahu finally decided to go after Hezbollah in a major way.
Once that started in mid-September, Halevi froze the probes and any resignation talk until after that conflict ended. Also, in the middle of this, there was a direct exchange of attacks between Israel and Iran, which Halevi believed required his personal management.
After the Hezbollah ceasefire on November 27, Halevi hoped that a hostage deal between Hamas and Israel – most importantly Netanyahu – would be possible.
Accordingly, he started moving forward on the October 7 probes again.
However, as hostage negotiations continued to drag out, Halevi foresaw that Netanyahu and Katz might just want to axe him so that they could try to blame the October 7 failure solely on him without taking government responsibility. Also, his concern that even the coming of Trump into office may not lead to a hostage deal has grown.
Finally, there is more talk than ever in recent months about a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
All of this means that while the IDF probes may still be issued in January-February, Halevi may resign at around the same time. The IDF chief may delay the probes more or issue the probes but decide to stay on longer, at least to ensure a hostage deal is cut, and possibly to be involved in future moves regarding Iran.
The bottom line is that had a hostage deal been made earlier, Halevi probably also would have issued the probe results much earlier and resigned at an earlier date as well.
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