IDF rejects claim of reserves officer who insists he was ousted for revealing high-level ‘cover-up’ of Oct. 7 failures

The IDF rejects claims made against the army by a disgruntled senior reserves officer who was booted from the military earlier this year, and unrelatedly was under investigation for suspected “severe operational security violations,” which he has since been cleared of.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Oren Solomon — a member of the hawkish HaBithonistim group — had been involved in preliminary investigations carried out by the Gaza Division into its failures related to Hamas’s October 7, 2023. He has repeatedly said that he believes he was removed from reserve duty because he found fault in the IDF’s top command, a claim that the IDF has denied multiple times.

Solomon made a statement to the media today, saying that the Military Police investigation against him was launched “in an attempt to undermine me, silence me, and other officers, all because of the findings of the investigation I led as head of the war investigation team, in which I discovered the magnitude of the failure and the dysfunction of the senior command echelon.”

“But not only that, I also found concealment of information from the political level, and worst of all: [former] chief of staff [Herzi] Halevi and a small team conducted a systematic operation of cover-up, obfuscation, and minimizing their share in the failure, in a methodical and sophisticated manner,” he said.

In response, the IDF issues a statement saying it “strongly rejects the claims” made by Solomon.

According to the army, Solomon served as a combat operations officer in the Gaza Division and was appointed by the former division chief, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld — who has since resigned from the military — to lead the division’s October 7 debriefings. The IDF stresses that Solomon “did not serve as the head of a General Staff war investigation team or in any similar position,” referring to the army’s investigations that were officially mandated by former chief of staff Halevi.

In March 2024, the current division commander, Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram decided to end Solomon’s reserve service “unrelated to his conclusions in the investigations or to the Military Police investigation,” the IDF says. According to the military, the pair had personal disagreements. In a letter that month, Solomon accused Hiram of being an “immature and unreliable” person.

The IDF says that Solomon’s “heroism” on October 7 in the area of the Nova music festival “saved many lives, and the IDF appreciates him for that.” But it adds that “his statements harm the IDF and its commanders and cast doubt on the integrity of the hundreds of servicemembers who worked on the October 7 investigations.”

“Baseless claims that cast aspersions on the chief of staff or on the commanders who led the IDF during wartime, especially when made by a senior reservist, are inappropriate, particularly at this time,” the IDF says.

In March this year, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir appointed an external panel of former senior officers — led by Maj. Gen. (res.) Sami Turgeman — to evaluate the military’s probes into Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and oversee implementation of the findings.

“The establishment of this team does not stem from any doubt about the credibility of previous investigations, but rather aims to broaden and deepen their review to derive systemic lessons,” the military says, adding that Zamir is expected to conclude the committee’s findings in the coming weeks, “and their results will be presented transparently to the public.”

Regarding the Military Police investigation, the IDF says that “such investigations are conducted solely based on professional and factual considerations, and this was also the case here.”

“Any attempt to link the opening of the investigation to other matters is entirely unfounded,” the military adds.