The IDF on Wednesday announced that it will start presenting its probes related to Hamas’s October 7 invasion and the following and ongoing Gaza war on a rolling basis during the months of July and August.
Aspects of a major probe on the IDF and defense establishment’s general national security and defense concept related to Gaza and Hamas over the years will be presented by key officers to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi already in early July, but will only be publicized to the public later in the summer after they are integrated with other issues.
This probe will look all the way back to 2018, but not earlier.
The IDF said that it expected that as part of an eventual state inquiry and eventual State Comptroller report, such probes might look further back in time, but that if the IDF had gone back further than 2018, it would have also meant delaying publicizing the results to the public.
Further, the IDF said that it would be problematic to delay explaining what happened on October 7, including the failure to prevent Hamas’s invasion, much past this point, given that by August already 10 months will have passed.
The first probes which will be publicized will likely be in mid-July, with the probe of the invasion and battle for the Gaza border village of Beeri potentially being the first. IDF Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein is leading the probe on Beeri.
Probes investigate individual battles across Israel's south
Besides Beeri, there are around 40 probes of other individual battles which occurred in the South relating to October 7 which will be publicized on a rolling basis from mid-July and through August.
A probe specifically on the events of October 6 leading up to the Hamas invasion, and specific warnings and operational moves made or not made during that period, will likely be publicized in early August.
On April 4, the IDF announced that portions of the probe will look back to 2018, while portions will even look back to the 2014 Gaza conflict, and that interim results would be provided to Halevi in mid-June.
On March 7, the IDF put out its first statement about the probe, noting that all probes will also look backward to March 2018 at a minimum.
However, on April 4, the IDF noted that the IDF intelligence analysis department would look backward even further to the Gaza conflict in July-August 2014.
March 2018 was also the month when Hamas initiated a low-intensity border conflict amid protests. Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar led the move following taking his leadership role in February 2017.
How far backward the report looks is significant because it could have potential implications for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ran the country for four and a half of the six years being reviewed back to March 2018.
It also has implications for war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot, who was IDF chief of staff from 2015-2019, for Aviv Kohavi, who was IDF chief 2019-January 2023, as well as, naturally, all current IDF and defense officials, including IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar, and IDF intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, though Haliva has announced his resignation, and his replacement, Shlomi Binder, is expected to take his place some time by the end of the summer.
If that was the only cut off, it could have given a free pass to war minister Benny Gantz, who was IDF chief from 2011-2015 - before the March 2018-2024 timeframe.
But if the IDF intelligence analysis probe goes back to mid-2014, it will also include the timeframe when Gantz was the IDF chief.
Some had suggested that a review of the failed policies leading to the October 7 failure needed to go back to Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, to Hamas's taking control in Gaza in 2007, or even back to the Second Intifada when a decision was made not to carry out a major anti-terror operation as was carried out in 2002 in the West Bank during Operation Defensive Shield.
Gantz currently has larger electoral support than Netanyahu's for the next Knesset if an election were held now, and has called for elections by October.
The 2018 timeframe of the report could help Gantz against Netanyahu, or the 2014 timeframe of the IDF intelligence part could equalize things, depending on how broadly it probes.
There was still no mention on Wednesday of whether an external review, which was originally planned, will still happen or, if so, when, suggesting the idea has been rejected due to political opposition.
Absent this external review, the IDF was unclear about how IDF officials in the Operations Command would be able to objectively judge Halevi, who outranks everyone in that command, as well as a few other officials, such as Haliva, who is at the same level as the IDF Operations Command Chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk.
However, the air force has noted that it will be involving both a reservist brigadier general and a reservist colonel, very senior officers, to perform outside analyses of its probe, specifically emphasizing that there will be officers who were not involved in anything related to October 7.
In contrast, the IDF Southern Command has said that its probes would be carried out by the brigadier generals, colonels, and lieutenant colonels who were in place before, during, and after October 7, without outside oversight from reservists officers.
It was unclear why only the air force is including outside oversight.
Halevi's explanation has been that the probe is being carried out "to restore confidence to evacuated persons" from the South and the North.
He has said that the IDF and the country must learn from the tragedy and improve itself both on defense and on the attack.
Further, Halevi has said that the IDF failed the country's civilians, and that "it is hard to say we learned our lesson to the citizens of Israel without this probe."
The probe will look into the IDF's concept of how to handle the border with Gaza, how to understand what Hamas is, how to prepare operationally for defending the country, and how to understand what Hamas was thinking.
Moreover, the probe will look into the intelligence and the decision-making process surrounding October 7.
Also, the probe will look into the processes of defense between October 7 and October 10.
Although the overall instructions for the probe seems to only go up to October 10, some of the general probe, and some of the specific command probes, such as the Southern Command, will also look into the war with Hamas after October 10.
For example, IDF Southern Command will have a colonel or lieutenant colonel separately probe each specific battle they fought in in parallel to the broader view being taken by Halevi and by the whole IDF Southern Command.
The IDF divisions being probed in the Southern Command include: the Gaza division and division 99 ,36 ,162 ,98, and 252.
The probe will also look at the method of rallying the reserves, the handling of logistics issues, and the process of evacuating Israeli civilians and the bodies of killed civilians from the borders, but these will be secondary to October 7 and decisions leading up to October 7.
The navy, home front command, operations command, communications and technology command will all also be probed.