IDF Chief: Many Oct. 7th victims’ last words were, ‘Where’s the IDF?’

Herzi HaLevi admitted that the army never believed that Hamas was capable of carrying out a terror onslaught on the scale of October 7th.

By World Israel News Staff

Outgoing IDF Chief-of-Staff Herzi HaLevi spoke of the Israeli military’s profound failures on October 7th, saying that he is aware that the final thoughts of many murdered on that day questioned the IDF’s whereabouts.

“I know lots of people were murdered, and their last words were, ‘Where is the IDF?’ I know that,” HaLevi, who resigned from his role in January, told Channel 12 News in an interview broadcast Sunday evening.

HaLevi said that the army did not believe that Hamas was capable of carrying out a terror onslaught on that scale.

“We considered Hamas to be a limited military force. We didn’t see a scenario of a wide surprise attack as a realistic scenario. And if there was to be something like that, our assumption was that we would get a warning ahead of time from [military] intelligence,” he said.

He added that when he considered which of Israel’s borders posed the biggest security risk, “I put Gaza as the last border that needed attention.”

HaLevi stressed that the Israeli military was confident about the Gaza border, including a prevailing belief that “the subterranean barrier was very high quality,” that Israel had superior intelligence gathering, and that the physical topography of the region was advantageous to Israel.

“We thought our situation overall was good,” he said.

HaLevi spoke of the IDF’s failed defense of many Gaza-adjacent kibbutzim, confirming the claims of many residents that troops never reached some communities at all while the invasion was ongoing.

“The results were terrible. As someone from Nir Oz told me, the first soldier arrived after the last terrorist had left,” HaLevi said. “That’s the worst thing that we could hear.”

HaLevi is being succeeded by Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who is slated to take office on Wednesday.

Zamir has already summoned senior military officials to Southern Command for a meeting this Friday, underscoring Israel’s threat to return to war against Hamas in Gaza.