Report: IDF chief halts work of outside team appointed to probe Oct. 7 failures

The Ynet news site is reporting that following political criticism, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has frozen the formation of an outside investigative team to examine the army’s operational failures in the lead-up to Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

The team was to include former IDF chief and defense minister Shaul Mofaz, former Military Intelligence Directorate head Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, former Southern Command leader Sami Turgeman and former Operations Directorate chief Yoav Har-Even.

It was to focus only on the army, and not political aspects.

But the appointments, particularly of Mofaz, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government over its judicial overhaul efforts, led to rebukes from right-wing ministers, amid apparent concern the team could also assign blame to politicians.

Ynet says Halevi has now stopped the panel’s work until the IDF concludes its own internal probes of the events.