The Israeli military’s chief of staff on Sunday summoned about a dozen senior commanders to let them know they would be ousted or disciplined for failures related to the Hamas-led attack that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip.

It was the most sweeping and punitive action against members of the Israeli military in the more than two years since Oct, 7, 2023 — the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

The decision by the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, to hold some commanders responsible carries symbolic weight, even if they are not from the top echelons of the military. Investigations into the failings of Israeli institutions before the attack and on the day it occurred have been a matter of intense national debate.

Zamir said in a statement Sunday that the Israeli military had “failed in its primary mission on Oct. 7 — to protect the civilians of the state of Israel.” He described it as a “severe, resounding, systemic failure” that warranted action to restore trust in the military and “to set a clear standard of command responsibility.”

“I have decided, after careful consideration, to draw personal conclusions regarding commanders holding certain positions who served on Oct. 7,” Zamir said.

The statement did not identify the commanders who were affected. Many were serving in the reserves and will be released, according to a separate statement from the Israeli military.

Zamir’s actions followed an announcement this month by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his government would conduct an official inquiry into the attacks, after long resisting demands to do so. That announcement angered rather than appeased critics, who worried that a team appointed by the same leader who was in charge during the Oct. 7 attacks would not be fully independent. Those critics protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday to call for an independent state inquiry.

The military’s decision to punish individual officers came after Zamir ordered an independent review of the military’s own internal investigations into the failures. The inquiry, which concluded this month, found that the extent of individual officers’ failings had not been reflected in initial findings presented to the public.

Military Said Senior Officers Underestimated Hamas

In February, releasing some of those findings, the military said senior officers had vastly underestimated Hamas and then misinterpreted early signs that a major assault was coming. But the investigations were not aimed at assigning individual responsibility, officials said at the time, noting that those determinations might come later.

Zamir, who took over as chief of staff in March, then ordered a review of those inquiries, which were conducted under the command of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, now retired. Halevi announced his resignation this year, citing in part the military’s failures under his command on Oct. 7 and his personal responsibility for them.

Some 1,200 people were killed in the cross-border attack and about 250 kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Neary 70,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli assault that followed, many of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The initial investigations were framed by the military as an effort to learn from that brutal day to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Zamir presented the review that he ordered — and his decision to reprimand individual officers — in a similar light.

Having considered the conclusions, individual assessments of responsibility were “a necessary step,” he said Sunday.

The separate military statement named about a dozen officers, mostly serving in the reserves, who would be affected. Many will be released from service, and some will be disciplined, the military said.

Zamir spoke highly of the officers even as he announced that they would be disciplined and said it was “not easy to make decisions that affect people I appreciate and who dedicated their lives to the security of the nation.”

But, he said, “If we do not sharpen the meaning of responsibility, trust in the system will erode.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Ephrat Livni/Amit Elkayam
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