Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has denied a request by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi to promote two officers of the army’s Southern Command, freezing the appointments pending a probe into their roles in the Oct. 7, 2023, failure.
Over the weekend, Halevi announced a round of senior nominations, naming 11 new brigadier generals and four new colonels, in addition to six brigadier generals and 19 colonels who would be starting new positions.
According to the Defense Ministry, Katz approved the promotions apart those for Lt. Col. Ephraim Avni, the Southern Command’s operations chief, and Lt. Col. “A.,” its head of combat engineering.
Avni was set to become the next head of the Paratroopers Brigade, while A., whose full name is banned from publication due to the position’s sensitivity, was slated to lead the Combat Engineering Corps’ Yahalom special forces unit.
Katz announced in the statement that the promotions would be frozen until their “connection to the events of Oct. 7 and their performance during the war is thoroughly examined” in an internal military inquiry.
He also said he would meet with the families of female IDF field observers (“tazpaniot”) from the army’s Nahal Oz command center, “to allow them to voice their position on the issue.” Fifteen tazpaniot were killed and six others were taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
Among the new brigadier generals promoted on Friday was a reservist officer who will be returning to the IDF to lead the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 8200 signal intelligence service, the army’s largest unit.
Typically, currently serving Unit 8200 officers would be considered for the position. However, the failure of the intelligence services to discern Hamas’s plans has led to their disqualification, Ynet reported on Nov. 5.
The previous Unit 8200 commander, Brig. Gen. Yossi Sariel, resigned on Sept. 12. Following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Sariel was blamed by former senior officers in the unit for neglecting an intelligence system that supplied important information about terrorist activities in Gaza.
Roughly 1,200 people, primarily Israelis, were murdered by Hamas-led terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, thousands more were wounded and 251 others were taken into the Gaza Strip.
