‘October 7 is a watershed in Israeli security’: Halevi says IDF will need to be bigger to prevent repeat massacre

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi says the IDF will need to be bigger and undergo changes to prevent an attack like October 7 from ever happening again.

“October 7 is a watershed in Israeli security. We began to investigate the complex events of this day, we will learn and make decisions,” he says at a press conference.

“The working hypotheses under which we operated, scenarios to which we prepared for, the perception of the enemy which we held, it is clear to us that these must change,” Halevi says.

“The IDF needs to be stronger, bigger, so that what happened on October 7 will not happen again. And of course, these are not the only changes,” he says.

“The decisions we make today have a decisive and critical effect on building the strength of the IDF in the near and distant future,” Halevi says.

“We do not have the privilege to postpone them. Delaying decisions on building the strength of the IDF endangers the security of the country,” he adds, in an apparent reference to reports that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has opposed the military purchasing new fighter jets.