Benjamin Netanyahu’s allies have privately hit out at Israel’s military leadership for moving ahead with an October 7 probe, laying bare tensions over failures before the devastating Hamas attack.
Israel’s top general told the prime minister’s security cabinet on Thursday night the military would establish a committee to investigate intelligence and operational problems, sparking a wave of criticism from some senior ministers.
The topic is highly sensitive because Netanyahu and his government have consistently rejected demands for an immediate inquiry, arguing that such an investigation should not start while the war in Gaza is ongoing. Until this week, the Israel Defense Forces had also adopted this position.
While all of Israel’s top security officials have publicly apologised for unacceptable failures before October 7, Netanyahu has long resisted acknowledging responsibility, only saying there would be a time when “answers will have to be given”.
Analysts view the political stance taken by Netanyahu as the prelude to a campaign to place blame solely on the country’s military and intelligence chiefs.
Benny Gantz, a former military chief and political rival to Netanyahu who joined his war cabinet in October, described the criticism of the military as “a politically motivated attack in the middle of a war”.
“I participated in many cabinet meetings — such conduct has never occurred, and must not occur,” he said on Friday.
At least 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage on October 7, according to Israeli authorities, an event widely seen in Israel as the worst military failure in the country’s history.
Herzi Halevi, chief of the general staff, outlined his proposals for the IDF inquiry, to be led by retired generals, during a security cabinet meeting that was intended to discuss plans for postwar Gaza.
One Israeli official confirmed that Halevi was attacked by several senior ministers over both the timing and make-up of the probe.
The argument was sparked, according to the official, by transport minister Miri Regev, a politician from Netanyahu’s Likud party who is seen as an ally of the prime minister.
Regev’s intervention was followed by far-right ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister.
Smotrich said there had been a “heated discussion” in the cabinet meeting about the timing of the probe while the fighting in Gaza was continuing as well as the need for politicians to be part of the inquiry and the political backgrounds of two of the proposed committee members.
In pointed criticisms, Smotrich alleged that Shaul Mofaz, a former army chief and defence minister, was a “clear political figure” and that Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, a former military intelligence chief, had been a prominent prewar government critic.
The dispute over the inquiry came in the second half of the cabinet’s first full meeting to discuss Israel’s plans for postwar Gaza.
According to the Israeli official, the issue of postwar plans remained unresolved, with no vote taken on a common position. The lack of clarity on the subject has caused strain between the administration of US President Joe Biden and the Netanyahu government, with Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, set to visit Israel early next week.
The Biden administration on Tuesday angrily rejected what it termed “inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric” by Israeli ministers, especially Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, about resettling Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip.
“We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the government of Israel, including by the prime minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government. They should stop immediately,” said the US state department.
And yet on Thursday, Smotrich, writing on Facebook, said that any “solution in Gaza” should include “encouraging voluntary migration” of Palestinians, along with full Israeli security control and the rebuilding of settlements in the Palestinian enclave, which Israel withdrew from in 2005.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, laid out his own plan for postwar Gaza in a document released on Thursday. According to Gallant’s vision, Israel would retain “operational freedom of action” in the territory, but would not directly manage its affairs.
“Hamas will not govern Gaza, Israel will not govern Gaza’s civilians,” he wrote, adding that unnamed local “Palestinian bodies” would be in charge, in tandem with a multinational task force “led by the US, in partnership with European and regional partners”.
In response to the October 7 attack, Israel launched a large-scale air and ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza. More than 22,000 people have been killed in the enclave, according to Palestinian health officials, swaths of the territory have been turned to rubble and about 80 per cent of residents displaced from their homes.
The Financial Times has previously reported that Israeli war planners expect fighting in Gaza to continue, in one form or another, for much of the coming year, with the postwar phase only officially set to commence after its conclusion.