After lengthy delays, the Israeli military announced on Sunday that it had completed its investigations into its failures during the lead-up to the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and would begin to present its findings next week.

The probes are aimed at drawing operational conclusions for the military and will not look into the policies of the political leadership, avoiding a fight with government leaders who have insisted that investigations must wait until after the end of the war against Hamas.

The IDF said that there would be no personal conclusions for officers at this stage. Such decisions regarding individual officers may be made by Halevi’s successor, incoming IDF chief of staff Maj. Gen. (res.) Eyal Zamir, at a later date.

The investigations — by units seen as having had a role in the failure to notice Hamas preparations or adequately ready themselves for the terror group’s onslaught — were carried out concurrently amid the war. Initial investigations began in November 2023, with outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi ordering all units to begin them in March.

Some of the probes have been ready for months, but the Israel Defense Forces decided that all of them should be concluded and packaged together before being presented to the public.

Thousands of hours were spent by officers on the investigations — collecting material, conducting interviews, and compiling the information. Halevi alone spent over 230 hours going over the investigations, military sources said.

Defense Minister Israel Katz in December set a January 31 deadline for Halevi to hand over the probes. The military has since presented many of the investigations to Katz over the past few weeks, and he will see all of them before the public does, according to the IDF.

The probes are focused on a timeframe from the March 2018 Hamas-led Gaza border riots until October 10, 2023, the point when........

© The Times of Israel