IDF chief’s multifront battle — to maintain army values, free hostages, tackle Iran
Herzi Halevi is operating beyond full stretch: He couldn’t even get to a meeting to okay the strike on Hezbollah’s top commander, diverting instead to a base under attack at home
Last Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi visited the forces holding the Netzarim Corridor, which runs across the Gaza Strip between its north and its south. The reserve soldiers he met had arrived at the corridor two weeks earlier and already experienced a number of combat incidents. For most of them, this was the third round of reservist service since the war began, on October 7.
Once operational updates had been completed, Halevi asked the soldiers to gather in a circle. It was close to midnight. The weather was humid. The soldiers were sweaty and tired. Low-altitude drones, securing the forces, buzzed loudly over their heads. This was the setting for a candid conversation between Halevi and the men around him.
After a round of introductions and general talk about how things were going, what was happening at their homes, and so on, Halevi brought up the incidents at the Sde Teiman and Beit Lid army bases last week, where dozens of far-right protesters – including MKs and at least one minister – broke in after nine reservists were arrested on suspicion of torturing and abusing a suspected Hamas terrorist at the Sde Teiman detention facility.
Some of the soldiers shifted uncomfortably. Some of them were wearing yarmulkes, others not. Those who spoke condemned the break-ins. One also noted, “Here in Gaza, I have no idea what my peers have under their helmets: A kippah or a rasta.”
The chief of staff continued to focus on the break-ins. Since they occurred, he has often spoken about “turning the bowl upside down” – that is, the fast, confusing transition from facing a terrorist who must be killed in battle to a prisoner of war who, immediately after he has surrendered, must be dealt with in accordance with the law.
Practice your values
Halevi is extremely troubled by the July 29 events at Sde Teiman and Beit Lid, perhaps even more so than by the suspicions leveled against the reservists alleged to have abused the Gaza terror suspect.
On the evening that the two IDF camps were breached by Jewish rioters, Halevi was on his way to approve plans for the assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, which took place the next night. Halevi didn’t make it to his meeting – instead, he drove straight to Beit Lid, while ordering the immediate deployment of three infantry battalions to secure the military court complex inside that base, where the accused reservists had been taken for questioning.
The IDF does not talk about this openly, but that evening it lost its trust in the Israel Police – which was slow to arrive and to disperse the rioters at both bases. To date, no suspect has been arrested.
The initial protest was organized by the Jerusalem-based La Familia organization, a radical right-wing grouping of ostensible Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans. The organization is considered close to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who oversees the police force. After violence broke out at a soccer match between Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv, a few days before Hamas invaded and carried out the October 7 massacre, Ben Gvir had told Army Radio, “There is over-enforcement against La Familia.”
This lack of trust by the IDF in the police ultimately led to the unprecedented situation at Beit Lid in which the Nahal Brigade – an elite infantry unit that had just finished a stint fighting in Rafah – was deployed at a base in central Israel to protect it from far-right Israeli rampagers. In other words, the IDF has entered the law enforcement vacuum. A separate break-in of ultra-Orthodox extremists at the IDF’s Tel Hashomer recruitment base on Tuesday underlines that the challenge is ongoing.
Halevi ended his meeting with the soldiers deployed at the Netzarim Corridor last week with a foundational instruction: “Just as you practice shooting, just as you practice your use of tanks, you have to practice values.”
Barnea changes his stance
Such comments by Halevi also connect to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with the IDF chief of staff and the other heads of the security establishment a day earlier, which became heated to the point of shouting.
One element links Halevi’s huddle with the soldiers in Gaza and that bitter meeting: the widening gap between the defense establishment on one side, and the prime minister and some of his ministers on the other.
For several months now, Halevi and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar have been leading the argument that Israel can and must reach a deal to release the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. In this regard, Halevi has not lost hope of convincing Netanyahu – and the issue comes up in almost every conversation between the two.
Until about three weeks ago, Halevi and Bar were at odds with Mossad chief David Barnea, who had broadly aligned himself with the prime minister’s frequent changes and hardening positions in the negotiations. Their frustration with Barnea was muted during high-level meetings, but it was made public, mostly via anonymous sources.
That changed, however, with the last meeting in Rome, almost two weeks ago, where the Mossad chief conveyed Israel’s new position paper, which indeed toughened the Israeli stance since the previous Israeli proposal that was publicly welcomed by US President Joe Biden at the end of May. Barnea, after Rome, joined the call for an immediate deal.
Wednesday’s shouting match marked a new low in the long-running face-off between the security chiefs and the prime minister. At their meeting, all the security chiefs demanded that the prime minister mark a clear path for them – deal or no deal. Netanyahu’s response — according to a report on Channel 12 – was to label them “weak.”
Harder to enlist the US
At this time of writing, it is not yet clear what the combined response of Iran and Hezbollah to the killings of Shukr — carried out by Israel — and of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh — blamed by Iran on Israel — will look like.
The IDF is planning ahead, and on Monday its discussions dealt with possible scenarios and the responses to them – including a scale of how and when Israel will respond to a number of potential scenarios, from very pessimistic cases of multiple casualties on the home front, through significant damage to civilian and military infrastructures, to stopping the attacks while absorbing minor injuries.
At the pessimistic end of the scale, two questions were examined:
1. Should Israel – especially in the Lebanese arena – strike a preemptive blow if it turns out that Hezbollah is planning massive, precise fire at population centers and strategic facilities?
2. Should Israel hold off retaliation against an Iranian strike, or take immediate action to end the incident?
The answer to these questions depends on the depth and intensity of the damage to Israel.
The Americans are already trying to limit Israel’s counter-reaction, notwithstanding Washington’s commitment to protecting Israel.
This commitment has been expressed over recent days in statements made by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Biden, the arrival in Israel on Monday of US Army Central Command head General Michael Kurilla, and the deployment of a significant naval force toward the Persian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Some discerning pundits have noticed that this time around, however, it was a little harder to harness the United States to take part in preparations for a potential Iranian-Hezbollah attack.
After Austin’s latest conversation with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, moreover, the US defense secretary’s bottom line was that a deal with Hamas has to be made. Gallant has no argument with that; Austin was directing his comment at Netanyahu.
Three times the United States has come to Israel’s aid since the war broke out: on October 7, in the Iranian missile attack in April, and amid the current tensions. Every time, the White House seems to be getting less enthused.
It may be a coincidence, but at previous high points of crisis, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Austin have visited. This time, Washington sufficed with sending Kurilla.
Netanyahu insists that Israel conduct an independent policy regarding both the negotiations for the release of hostages and the handling of Iran and its proxies. But at the same time, Israel is also asking for the protection of the US-led international coalition. These two do not always go together, especially when the United States is seeking to manage risks rather than respond to them.
The current confrontation, marked by the combining of multiple fronts threatening and targeting Israel, requires a broad, full-fledged international coalition. That in turn requires a willingness by Israel to consider the interests of the other countries in the alliance.
So far, Netanyahu has managed to just about walk this tightrope. It’s not certain he will succeed a fourth time, if there is one.
Translated and edited from the original Hebrew on The Times of Israel’s sister site Zman Yisrael.
