Former Israeli army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi acknowledged that bombs dropped by the Israeli military killed Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip.
اضافة اعلان
Halevi made the remarks on Sunday during the third annual “Confronting Hate” conference at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
With U.S. support, Israel has been waging a genocidal war in Gaza since 2023, killing more than 74,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Speaking about the war, Halevi said: “Unfortunately, we made mistakes. Our bombs killed captives,” according to the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
“Of course, it was not intentional, because we did not know they were there,” he added.
Israel has repeatedly denied responsibility for the deaths of captives and accused Hamas of killing them, a claim the movement has repeatedly rejected.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israeli military bases and settlements near Gaza, killing and capturing Israelis. The movement said the attack was carried out in response to “daily occupation crimes against the Palestinian people and their holy sites, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
During Israel’s war in Gaza, more than 70 captives were killed, while Israel recovered the remaining captives alive through a prisoner exchange with Hamas.
Halevi also said it took him a long time to convince the political leadership to approve a ground operation in Gaza to help recover the captives.
In March 2025, Halevi resigned from his position, saying he bore part of the responsibility for the October 7, 2023 attack. He was succeeded by Eyal Zamir.
Halevi described the October 7 attack as “a failure that could have been prevented.” However, he rejected claims of “internal betrayal” within Israel’s security establishment that had helped Hamas carry out the attack.
“There was absolutely no betrayal, and the political leadership and the state leadership must say that clearly and unequivocally,” he said.
“Helping Hamas would have required a wide network of collaborators, not just one person, and after three years, not a single person of that kind has been found,” he added.
Regarding calls for the establishment of an official commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding October 7, Halevi said Israel must complete its investigation and ask “the difficult questions.”
Israeli officials consider the October 7 attack the biggest intelligence and military failure in Israel’s history, established in 1948 on occupied Palestinian land.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for an official commission of inquiry, denying any responsibility for the failure and placing the blame on the military.
In 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Halevi said the army’s priorities before the attack had focused on Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, while Hamas was considered a less immediate threat.
“We should have fought a war in Gaza, but our priorities were, first Iran, then Hezbollah,” he said.
“Only after that came Hamas, because we did not know that Hamas intended to carry out an operation on this scale,” he added.
Halevi acknowledged that Yahya Sinwar, who was Hamas’s leader in Gaza at the time, worked to prevent Israel from anticipating the scale of the October 7 attack.
“Sinwar did everything he could to surprise us and carry out simultaneous operations,” he said.
“Every point along the Gaza border came under attack immediately after 6:29 a.m.,” he added.
Despite the ceasefire agreement announced on October 10, 2025, Israel has continued its war in Gaza through daily bombardment, which has killed 1,580 Palestinians and injured 5,711, most of them women and children.
Israel has also blocked the entry of agreed quantities of food, medicines, medical supplies, shelter materials and prefabricated homes into Gaza, where around 2.4 million Palestinians, including 2.15 million displaced people, are living in catastrophic conditions.
The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, is considering a case brought by South Africa and joined by several other countries, accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Source: Agencies
