Defense minister, IDF chief meet; say they are ‘working together’ after public spat
Quarrel erupted after Katz ordered Zamir to examine Military Police investigation of Brig. Gen. (res.) Oren Solomon, who is suspected of taking hundreds of classified docs home
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
After clashing publicly over the investigation of a senior reserves officer for alleged “severe” security violations, Defense Minister Israel Katz met with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Tuesday evening.
The row erupted on Monday, after Katz ordered Zamir, in a statement to the media, to examine the Military Police investigation of Brig. Gen. (res.) Oren Solomon. In response, Zamir said he does not take orders via the media and defended the investigation of the senior reservist officer. Katz later responded to Zamir, saying he could give orders to the chief of staff “in any way he deems appropriate.”
“We are working together in full cooperation for Israel’s security, as it was and as it will always be,” Katz said in a statement on Tuesday evening, following his meeting with Zamir.
According to Katz’s office, the pair discussed “ways to return the hostages, increasing the military pressure in Gaza against the Hamas terror organization, and IDF activity on other fronts.”
“At the end of the meeting, the defense minister and the chief of staff agreed to continue the joint activity to achieve the goals, emphasizing that the IDF would continue to fight with intensity until all the objectives of the war are achieved,” the statement added.
There was no immediate comment from the IDF on the meeting.
On Monday evening, Katz put out a statement demanding to meet with Solomon, an officer who was involved in the Gaza Division’s probe into its failures related to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, after he was booted from reserve duty and put under investigation by the Military Police.
The October 7 probe that Solomon was involved in, which has not yet been made public, reportedly found fault in the higher echelons of the military. Many other IDF probes have come to similar conclusions.
Solomon was not responsible for the probe, but rather just involved in it, according to the military.
Channel 12 news reported last week that Solomon, a member of the hawkish HaBithonistim group, told associates that he believes he was removed from reserve duty because he found fault in the IDF’s top command.
The army said that Solomon worked on the probe for a year with full support and that the end of his reserve service was unrelated to the probe.
According to the IDF, Solomon was dismissed by his commander, Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, because of various disagreements between the pair unrelated to the October 7 investigation and the allegations of security violations.
Hiram was unaware of the allegations against Solomon when he dismissed him from reserve duty, according to the military. In a letter dated March 10, Solomon accused Hiram of being an “immature and unreliable” person.
On Monday, the IDF said that a Military Police investigation was opened into “severe operational security violations” by the officer. After an initial examination of the findings, Solomon was called in for questioning, which he showed up to. He was not arrested, the military said.
“The investigation is in its early stages, and it is not possible to comment on the actions taken,” the IDF added.
A probe by the IDF’s Information Security Department was launched in January, and looked into suspicions that Solomon allegedly took hundreds of classified documents from the Gaza Division computers to his home. In early March, the Military Advocate General ordered the Military Police to launch a criminal investigation into the incident.
Katz, in his original statement, said he “instructed Brig. Gen. (res.) Oren Solomon to be summoned to me as soon as possible so that he can present me with the investigation he conducted into October 7, which I have not yet seen.”
“The fact that Brig. Gen. Solomon, who carried out with permission and authority an investigation… that criticized the senior IDF echelon, is called in for interrogation is puzzling. I intend to ask the chief of staff to examine the conduct of the Military Advocate General,” Katz said.
Katz added that “it cannot be perceived that Military Police investigations are a tool for silencing internal criticism in the IDF.”
Zamir hit back at Katz for instructing him via a statement to the media to examine the conduct of the Military Advocate General.
“The chief of staff does not take instructions via media announcements,” Zamir said in a statement released by the IDF. “The claim that the officer was being investigated because of his part in the October 7 investigations is false and unfounded.”
“The officer was summoned for questioning on suspicion of serious operational security violations. The investigation will continue to be conducted professionally,” Zamir said.
“I support the IDF’s law enforcement bodies, which are acting in accordance with the law to investigate suspicions, as required,” he added.
Responding Tuesday morning to the army chief’s remark about instructions via the media, Katz asserted in a statement that he can give orders to Zamir “in any way he deems appropriate,” and the chief of staff’s response was “unnecessary and inappropriate.”
The minister further asserted that he’d first privately issued the instruction to Zamir and then put out a statement to fulfill the need to satisfy public interest.
“This was without any intention of harming the investigation itself, which is being conducted by the Military Advocate General,” Katz said. “The media discourse surrounding the issue must now be stopped.”
The military has said that the Gaza Division’s probe would be presented to the relevant communities and the public when finished, as all probes are.
Katz repeatedly publicly clashed with Zamir’s predecessor Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, as well as other senior officers, including outgoing IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari and Intelligence Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder.
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