Challenging Zamir, Katz orders review of external probe of IDF’s Oct.7 investigation

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday stepped up his ongoing clash with Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, saying that he had ordered the defense establishment comptroller to re-evaluate the findings made by an external panel of former senior officers that looked into the IDF’s October 7, 2023, investigations.

The announcement came a day after Zamir dismissed several senior officers and censured others for their roles in the October 7 failures, based on the findings of an external probe that found the IDF’s own investigations into its failures inadequate or unacceptable.

Katz has been fighting a months-long, escalating campaign against Zamir over senior IDF appointments by selectively promoting officers and denying the appointments of others with whom he apparently does not see eye to eye. Some military officials have warned that Katz is attempting to politicize the army by taking control of senior appointments.

After Zamir’s round of dismissals, Katz said Monday that he is freezing all senior appointments in the IDF until Defense Establishment Comptroller Brig. Gen. (res.) Yair Volansky, a Defense Ministry staff member, submits his findings on the external probe, which itself examined the IDF’s investigations into October 7.

Volansky is to “thoroughly examine the report” prepared by Maj. Gen. (res.) Sami Turgeman and a team of other former senior officers, “including the question of the need for additional investigations in areas that the IDF has not previously investigated… as well as completing investigations that the committee marked in red and determined were not carried out properly and in depth,” Katz said in a statement.

Turgeman’s team noted several topics that were not investigated at all, chief among them the IDF’s handling of intelligence reports received since 2018, which outlined Hamas’s intent to launch a wide-scale attack against Israel, known as “Jericho’s Walls.”

Additionally, Katz said the comptroller will be asked to “formulate a recommendation for equal criteria regarding the drawing of personal conclusions,” referring to Zamir’s announcement that he would dismiss a number of senior officers based on “personal decisions” following the external probe of the IDF investigations.

Katz said that Volansky will submit his recommendations within 30 days, “so that I can quickly form my position on senior IDF appointments under my authority in light of the events of October 7.”

Additionally, Katz said that his position, whereby officers who served in the Southern Command on October 7 will not be promoted, “remains unchanged.” Zamir ruled that there was no issue with the promotion of three senior officers whose promotions had previously been held up or canceled by Katz.

Katz also claimed that the issue of appointing a military attaché to the US “is entirely unrelated to this matter and does not constitute grounds for delaying any appointment in the IDF.” Katz has been seeking to appoint his military secretary, Brig. Gen. Guy Markizeno, as the next attaché, a move that Zamir does not support.

Since he became defense minister in late 2024, Katz has canceled the appointments of several senior officers chosen by Zamir and his predecessor, Herzi Halevi.

Some of the promotion hold-ups appeared to have a rational justification, while others were met with puzzlement in the military.

Katz also delayed the promotion of dozens of colonels and brigadier generals for weeks, claiming that they had been made by Zamir without consultation. He also has yet to rule on the appointments for three major general roles, with the officers currently staffing them nearing the end of their tenures.

Typically, senior appointments, aside from those of top generals, are brought to the defense minister for approval following internal IDF meetings on the matter. Katz has falsely claimed that, by law, he is responsible for senior promotions in the military.

Katz publicly slammed the military chief in August for announcing a list of senior appointments, claiming Zamir had done so without consulting him. At the end of the month, the two announced that they had reached an understanding on the army’s appointment process, though the feud seems to have resurfaced.