The head of the military intelligence service has resigned

The head of the Israeli armed forces has resigned, about seven months after the attack launched by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023.

IDF intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Aaron Haliva has resigned and will step down once his successor is named as a result of the Hamas attack in October, Israel’s armed forces announced.

Haliva said last year that he accepted responsibility for the intelligence failures that allowed Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

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Major General Haliva, “in coordination with the chief of the general staff, requested that his duties be terminated,” the armed forces said in a statement. “It has been decided that General Haliva will leave his duties and retire as soon as his successor is appointed.”

“On October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a deadly surprise attack against the State of Israel (…) the intelligence service under my command did not carry out the mission assigned to us,” says Major General Haliva, who serves here and 38 years in the armed forces, in his resignation letter released by the Israeli military.

“Since then I carry this black day with me. One day after another, one night after another. I will carry this terrible pain with me forever,” he adds.

The October 7 Hamas attack killed 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel retaliated by launching a military operation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, vowing to eliminate the Palestinian group, whose fighters also took 250 hostages to Gaza on October 7, of whom about 100 were released during a truce at the end of November.

Israeli operations in Gaza have claimed the lives of more than 34,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to Hamas’ health ministry.