IDF chief Halevi: officers must intervene to stop attacks against Palestinians

Military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi says officers must intervene in violence by Israeli civilians against Palestinians in the West Bank, following a recent string of settler attacks on Palestinian towns and villages.

“An officer who sees an Israeli citizen intending to throw a Molotov cocktail into a Palestinian house and stands by, cannot be an officer,” Halevi says at a cadets graduation ceremony at the Israel Defense Forces’ officers school in southern Israel, known as Bahad 1.

“This is our way, this is our strength here compared to the complex region in which we live, and we must not erode it,” he says.

Halevi tells the new officers that while they will deal with protecting Israel’s borders, foiling Palestinian terror, and fighting in wars, they will “also encounter complex challenges” of settler violence.

“Terrorism and its severe consequences lead some people to commit morally and legally prohibited acts,” Halevi says. “Whoever berates the IDF, should remember that even an apology after the fact does not cancel the great damage caused,” he says, in remarks aimed at far-right minister Orit Strock, who on Monday compared Halevi and other security chiefs to Russia’s mutinous Wagner group, after they issued a joint statement condemning the settler rampages as “terrorism.”

She later apologized.

“The IDF acts solely for the security of the citizens. The tongue-lashing of those who dedicate their lives to defend harms the security of the citizens,” Halevi adds.