A battle has reignited in public among officers from IDF Southern Command regarding blame for the October 7 massacre.
Allegations of being at fault that were directed at OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkelman by the head of Southern Command Operations, Col. Efraim Avni, were part of a broader battle in which Avni’s promotion was frozen in November, Channel 12 reported Wednesday.
In a multidimensional chess game, it is also part of a larger quarrel between Southern Command and other elements in the defense and political establishments over shifting blame for the disaster.
Most of the main details regarding the involvement of Finkelman and other top political and defense officials have been steadily leaked out over the last 15 months.
But on Wednesday morning, Channel 12 added the detail that Avni had recommended to Finkelman to wake up all of the Southern Command battalion commanders at 3 a.m. on October 7 to rush them back to their posts on an emergency basis.
Finkelman both initially and finally rejected Avni’s recommendation at 3 a.m. and again at 4 a.m.
Despite Finkelman’s decision, the report said Avni had returned to his post on an emergency basis.
What the report did not emphasize was that Finkelman also left a vacation outing in the middle of the night to return on an emergency basis to his post.
The Jerusalem Post has learned that Finkelman returned to his post thinking that the new intelligence about a possible move by Hamas could mean an attempt to carry out a limited anti-tank missile ambush, limited operation to kidnap a few hostages, or some other elevated but still relatively small and contained threat.
He and most of the IDF upper echelon and political class believed that Hamas was far too deterred to try a major invasion, such as the one it carried out, and he did not want to wake up others in his command unnecessarily.
An embarrassing decision
In retrospect, this decision was an embarrassing one for him. Moreover, decisions by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director Ronen Bar, and some IDF intelligence officials (who strangely, did not wake up then-Military Intelligence Directorate chief Aharon Haliva) not to initiate any major moves to reinforce the border were also embarrassing.
The state prosecution is probing some aides of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly altering the record regarding aspects of what he knew that night and when, but the full details have not been leaked and Netanyahu himself has blocked even the start of a probe now for 15 months.
Avni could be settling scores with Finkelman regarding his frozen appointment. In November, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he was freezing Avni’s promotion pending IDF probe results about his actions on October 7.
The latest revelations could help Avni in his accusations against Finkelman and others by presenting him as having tried to avoid the October 7 disaster but having been met with deaf ears from his superiors.
Avni also may be seeking to settle scores with Finkelman and others, given that he was rebuked for bringing Rabbi Tzvi Kostiner, a head of premilitary academy, into Gaza in late November without authorization.
Kostiner has been blocked from public interactions with IDF forces due to statements he has made against the LGBT community.
The issue of civilians being brought into war zones without proper high-level authorization started to receive greater attention after archaeologist Zeev “Jabo” Erlich, a civilian, was killed along with a soldier in a Lebanon war zone he had entered together with IDF forces without proper authorization.