Outgoing commander of the IDF Military Intelligence Aharon Haliva speaks during a replacing ceremony held at the IDF Intelligence Command headquarters in Glilot, August 21, 2024. (Photo: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Aharon Haliva, who served as IDF Intelligence Chief during Oct. 7, 2023, spoke in-depth for the first time about the lead-up to the catastrophe, intelligence failures and the army’s response, and his responsibility for it all, in a series of leaked recordings published on Channel 12 News on Friday.
It remains unclear when or where the recordings were made, or who leaked them. Channel 12 noted only that the material had been approved by the IDF’s military censor, while Haliva, in his official response, did not deny their authenticity.
Some commenters speculated the former general was, himself, involved in the leaks, as Haliva reiterates his personal responsibility for the failure while ultimately attributing it to “deeper” causes that extended beyond his tenure.
“One of the hardest problems in intelligence? That intelligence until October 7 said, ‘I am omnipotent.’ This isn’t an issue of arrogance and complacency – it is deeper than that,” Haliva said.
This deeper problem – since Oct. 7 widely referred to as the “false conceptzia” (intelligence conception) widely referred to as the “false conceptzia” – had shaped the entire mindset of Israel’s security establishment. Haliva noted that, even if he had received definitive warnings of Hamas’ plans the night before, he wouldn’t have believed them.
“When you enter a certain night with such a strong conception that intelligence will provide warning for you… Guys, even if the chief of staff had woken me at night, I would have said, ‘I am accepting the assessments of the brigade commander and the command chief and the Shin Bet.’ Whoever says otherwise – is a liar.”
“If I, as the head of IDF Intelligence, can tell you that a truck is leaving Iran, traveling through Iraq, crossing to Syria –and in truck number 4 out of 22, in the rear right compartment, there are two missiles… If my intelligence is so good on something like that, I’m not aware of a war that big in Gaza? Wait, wait – do you understand what a conception is?”
Haliva said that during one of the meetings to analyze what went wrong in the lead-up to the Hamas invasion, a former intelligence officer presented a theoretical piece of intelligence on Hamas’ senior heads discussing their plans for the invasion on the evening before.
Haliva recounted: “Then he says: even if that intelligence had been received, it wouldn’t have changed anything because you can’t imagine in your wildest imagination a scenario like 6:29 a.m. without a lot of intelligence on it. So one item wouldn’t have changed anything… for everything that happens, you immediately find an explanation in your conception – logical explanations, saying either it’s an exercise or their preparation for our attack on Sunday.”
Despite mentioning several such meetings, as well as personally writing an in-depth report analyzing the intelligence system’s failures, Haliva has so far declined to discuss the issue in public, making the leaked recordings his only detailed statements on the subject to date.
“I took responsibility. For an event as tragic – as biblical – as this, a national catastrophe of such magnitude, there is enough responsibility to go around. You can’t talk about ‘leading by example’ as a core value, hang it like a slogan on the wall, and then act in a way that contradicts it. You just can’t. People need to step down,” he said.
Due to his involvement in the failures, Haliva was the first high-ranking security chief to retire from his post in April 2024.
In addition to the false intelligence conception, Haliva also criticized the general culture in the combat units, claiming that many senior officers strive to be at home with their families as much as possible.
“You want the good company commanders to stay, the good battalion commanders to stay – but they come from religious Zionism, they have more kids at home, one wants to travel abroad – so you have to maneuver that.”
In the days preceding Oct. 7, many IDF units on the border conducted what is termed a “silencing” in Hebrew, meaning a marked reduction in manpower to allow as many soldiers as possible to spend the religious festivals at home.
Haliva lamented, “There is a ‘Sukkot silence,’ there is a hidden or real ‘Hanukkah silence’ – check me, there is a ‘Passover silence,’ there is the last two weeks of August silence. And now and then there’s a Purim silence. Why is that? Not fatigue – it’s from complacency. You think you’re strong enough, your enemy is deterred.”
In the recordings, Haliva also noted that the false conception was not limited to the IDF but had permeated the entire security apparatus and the political echelon, distorting threat assessments and allowing politics to focus elsewhere.
“We have here a responsibility for years of organizational culture, of a complete strategic conception that says: we are the State of Israel, we have very strong intelligence – Shin Bet, Mossad, IDF intelligence, blah blah – we have a strong military force, observations, everything, our enemy is deterred; meanwhile we calm him with Qatari money, with agreements with Hezbollah, we will let them set up a tent on Mount Dov… and so the startup nation continues to advance, and every now and then we go into small rounds of battle,” he continued
Haliva reiterated: “I didn’t understand. Those before me didn’t understand – neither Tamir Hayman nor Herzi [Halevi], who had been head of intelligence, nor [former IDF chief] Aviv [Kochavi] nor Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman.”
The whole system was convinced that Hamas is deterred and would not start a large-scale war, Haliva emphasized.
In one recording, he was asked, “If you go back today, would you still write that ‘Hamas is deterred,’ based on what you had in your hand?” Haliva responded confidently: “Of course – our system of understanding failed. It’s a much deeper issue.”
Another aspect of the system-wide failure was the political preoccupation with the government’s judicial reform push, along with actions by some right-wing ministers that, Haliva said, inflamed tensions in Judea and Samaria.
“I assessed, as head of intelligence, that 2023 and 2024 would be a catastrophe in Judea and Samaria… On Friday, October 6, we dealt a lot with Huwara , because of the movement and pressure from [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich.”
“The fact that it happened during your watch means your performance didn’t succeed – you’re prime minister, you’re defense minister, you’re members of the political-security cabinet – that’s how you’re called. This is your watch,” Haliva said.
“Were there enough discussions in the political-security cabinet about Gaza? Did the cabinet ministers bother to dig deep about Gaza? You’ll find – they didn’t. Because you’re occupied all day with discussions about the judicial system…”
Regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s responsibility for the failures of Oct. 7, Haliva explained: “This prime minister is a very attentive person, the most attentive person in the world. The guy listens, he reads – and one could say he’s also a very cowardly person – so he was frightened by other things. He doesn’t rush to war, he doesn’t rush to attack – he had hesitations, that’s fine.”
“He allowed Hezbollah to grow with Radwan and Hamas to grow with the Nukhba – he allowed it. He moved away from a bulwark, visited the Gaza Division, everything – what’s new? He knew the problem with the Palestinian prisoners was pressing, he saw the Temple Mount was burning, he saw that there were terror waves – it was all known. He decided not to go to war, and fine, that’s a legitimate decision – but when it fails the final assessment, the result – it has a price.”
