The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, announced on Tuesday that he would resign in early March, citing in part the military’s failure under his command to protect Israelis from the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
The heavy toll of the attacks — 1,200 killed in Israel and 250 others taken hostage to Gaza — had long come with an expectation in Israel that at least some of the country’s leaders would ultimately resign. Only a few officials have done so, and General Halevi is the highest-ranking military leader to step down so far.
“My responsibility for the terrible failure accompanies me every day, every hour and will for the rest of my life,” he said in a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, announcing his resignation.
Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed calls to resign or take full-throated responsibility for the disastrous failure to predict and prevent Hamas’s attack. He has said he will have to answer “difficult questions” after the war.
General Halevi announced he would resign just two days after Israel and Hamas began a 42-day truce, the first phase of a cease-fire and hostage release deal. On Sunday, Hamas released three female hostages held in Gaza since the 2023 attacks in exchange for 90 Palestinians, mostly women and minors, jailed in Israel.
Citing the agreement with Hamas, General Halevi said the timing was “now ripe” for him to leave, since hostages had begun to come home. He also said that the Israeli military had scored a number of major achievements, allowing him to bow out with Israel’s “deterrence and might” restored.
But he also conceded that Israel’s war aims — which include Hamas’s destruction and the return of all the remaining hostages — had “yet to be achieved.” In the wake of the cease-fire, Hamas forces have reasserted their control over much of Gaza, and most of the hostages still remain in the enclave.
Mr. Netanyahu never fully clicked with General Halevi, said Amos Harel, the military affairs commentator for Haaretz, an Israeli daily. After the Hamas attacks, Mr. Netanyahu increasingly attempted to shift the blame for the disaster to the military chief, Mr. Harel said.
With General Halevi, who was appointed by the prime minister’s centrist opponents in 2022, out of the picture, Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative allies now hope for the opportunity to appoint a military chief who more closely aligns with them.
Hard-line government figures like Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, have also criticized military leaders like General Halevi for not launching an even more aggressive campaign in Gaza. Their criticism stood diametrically opposed to accusations by human rights groups that the Israeli military had committed war crimes.
In a statement, Mr. Smotrich praised General Halevi before quickly noting that he had long criticized the general for his “failure in the campaign to eliminate Hamas’s civilian and governing powers.” He said he hoped General Halevi’s resignation would herald a more hawkish mind-set among the top military brass.
“The coming period will be marked by a change in the senior military command as part of the preparations to resume the war, and this time, God willing, until complete victory,” said Mr. Smotrich, who opposed the cease-fire deal with Hamas.
More resignations are anticipated in the coming weeks and months. Aharon Haliva, the head of Israel’s military intelligence, resigned in 2024, as did the head of the Israeli military’s Gaza brigade. Shortly after General Halevi’s announcement, another general — Yaron Finkelman, head of the military’s southern command — said he, too, would resign, although he did not give a date.
Over the past 15 months, General Halevi, 57, who assumed the military’s top post in early 2023, has overseen Israeli forces through the war in Gaza, a ground invasion of Lebanon, military operations in Syria and strikes in Iran.
Israel has eliminated nearly 20,000 Hamas operatives and decimated the chain of command in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, General Halevi said in a televised statement on Tuesday evening.
“The Middle East has changed,” he said. “The map of threats has transformed entirely.”
The Israeli military will finalize a series of internal inquiries into its failure on Oct. 7, 2023, before his departure, General Halevi said. Mr. Katz, the defense minister, has ordered the military to speed up the process, which has been delayed for several months.
But General Halevi said the military’s inquiries into its complex failures were inherently limited. He suggested that an independent investigation into the attacks was necessary, which Mr. Netanyahu has so far declined to convene.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
