Outgoing IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Herzi Halevi called for a state inquiry into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government regarding the events of the October 7 massacre, during the chief of staff changeover ceremony in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, in which incoming chief Eyal Zamir replaced him.
“A state inquiry is necessary, not to accuse, but to get to the root of the problems, and to make it possible to fix them,” he said.
הרמטכ"ל היוצא הלוי: "צה"ל חווה לעיתים יחס משתלח, לפני המלחמה ובמהלכה. לא חייבים להיות לוחמים כדי להביע דעה, אך חלק מהמטיפים על מחסור באומץ ובנחישות מעולם לא הרגישו הדק קר בלילה מול אויב, לא שמעו נשימות חבר פצוע על אלונקה הנישאת בשטח עוין"@idfonline pic.twitter.com/861UJWCCYz
— ערוץ כנסת (@KnessetT) March 5, 2025
Halevi said that despite this call he took responsibility for failing to prevent Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel, which was why he is resigning 10 months before his three-year term was due to end – the first early resignation by an IDF chief since the Second Lebanon War.
But he went further, seeming to take a shot at Netanyahu blocking a state inquiry amid claims that the prime minister has largely avoided taking responsibility for October 7.
הרצי הלוי: "הקמת ועדת חקירה ממלכתית - נחוצה וחיונית" | הרמטכ"ל היוצא נשא דברים בטקס ההחלפה: "לא כדי להאשים, אלא בראש ובראשונה כדי להגיע לשורש הבעיות ולאפשר תיקון"@idfonline pic.twitter.com/VuIT6aJ5dw
— ערוץ כנסת (@KnessetT) March 5, 2025
Halevi said that he saw taking responsibility as “a question of values” and setting an example, not as a complex legal calculation parsing the word “responsibility.”
The outgoing chief rejected attacks on the military in recent years, both on reservists protecting the judicial overhaul before the war, and for perceived weakness during the war.
He warned that such attacks do not help the IDF improve, but rather harm the military’s strength and upset many parents of soldiers who have died in combat.
He added that such attacks could reduce motivation for serving in the IDF, and that he had allowed reservists to protest the judicial overhaul, but prevented them from using their roles in the IDF as a way to augment their protest, punishing some officers who did so.
Hostages must return for critical victory
Halevi said, “I was sworn to be faithful to the State… was always transparent, the good of the state was always the top value… and I was never loyal just to a person,” in a seeming reference some to some of his disagreements with Netanyahu – such as debates over the state inquiry, the pace of integration of haredim into the IDF, and his recommendation to cut a hostage deal in Summer 2024.
At the same time, Halevi said that the IDF is always obligated to follow the orders of the political echelon.Turning to Netanyahu, Halevi said he knew that the higher up one is ranked, the harder the operations approvals become and that he appreciated “the freedom of action which the prime minister gave the IDF to be proactive and to act.”
In a not-so-veiled criticism of the prime minister, he said that the IDF can never leave wounded soldiers “in enemy territory,” as 59 Israeli hostages remain in captivity.
“We must do everything to return all of the hostages; this is critical for victory,” he said.
Halevi and the entire defense establishment have been overwhelmingly in favor of ending the war in Gaza at certain times in order to get all of the hostages back, promising that a Hamas violation of the ceasefire at some later date would allow the military to re-invade Gaza.
The outgoing IDF chief demanded that the government recruit the haredi community into the army in order to reduce the heavy pressure on reservists.
Halevi said that he will carry the weight of his failure on October 7 for the rest of his life.
At the same time, he said that he had also taken part in many major achievements, both before becoming IDF chief, and after October 7, as the commander who clobbered Hezbollah in Lebanon, defeated Hamas militarily, reduced the military threat from Syria, struck Yemen’s Houthis, and bested Iran in a series of exchanges.
Netanyahu also gave Halevi credit for rallying after October 7 and for special operations far beyond Israel’s borders earlier on in his career.