Herzi Halevi

Herzi Halevi   (soldier, spook)
Born	17 December 1967
Israel/Defense Forces/Chief of Staff  In office 16 January 2023 - Present Preceded by Aviv Kokhavi

Herzl "Herzi" Halevi is the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defence Force, having taken the oath of office on 16 January 2023.

Background

Herzi Halevi was born in Jerusalem. His father Shlomo was the son of Haim Shalom Halevi (Gordin), a member of the Irgun and the "Battalion for the Defence of the Language", and Tzila, the daughter of Rabbi Dov-Ber HaCohen Kook and niece of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, the chief rabbi of Israel. He was named after his uncle who died in the battle for Jerusalem in the Six-Day War several months before his birth. Halevi's mother's family lived in Jerusalem for 14 generations, while his father's parents immigrated from Russia.

Halevi studied at Himmelfarb religious high school and was a member of the Tzofim religious scouts.

Military career

Herzi Halevi was previously the commander of the Israeli Southern Command, the chief of the Military Intelligence Directorate, the commander of the 91st (Territorial) Division, the commander of the 35th Paratroopers Brigade, and the commander of the Sayeret Matkal. Halevi is the first practising Orthodox Jew to serve as the head of Israeli military intelligence.

2023 Hamas attack on Israel

The IDF did not live up to its responsibility to protect the country when Hamas struck, IDF Chief of Staff, Lt-Gen. Herzi Halevi, said on 12 October 2023. But now, he said, he intends to fight the war and destroy the Resistance group and its leadership:

“The IDF is responsible for the security of our nation and its citizens, and we failed to do so on Saturday morning,” Halevi said, in Hebrew, in his first public remarks since the conflict broke out. “We will look into it, we will investigate, but now it is time for war.”

Halevi described Hamas as “animals” and “merciless terrorists who have committed unimaginable acts” against men, women, and children, and their attack on the morning of October 7 as “murderous, brutal and surprising.”

The IDF “understands the magnitude of this time, and the magnitude of the mission that lays on our shoulders,” Halevi said.

“Yahyah Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, decided on this horrible attack, and therefore he and the entire system under him are dead men,” the Israeli general added, vowing to “attack them and dismantle them and their organisation” and that “Gaza will not look the same” afterward.

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:The BBC is weaponising its Lebanon reporting to help disguise Israel's crimes	Article	27 September 2024	Jonathan Cook	By the third week of September, Israel had killed more than 750 Lebanese, compared to 33 Israeli deaths. The differential is even starker now. And yet the western media has not framed Hezbollah’s attacks as its "right to defend itself" – a right we are continuously reminded Israel has.

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 28 December 2023.
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