Israel's military intelligence head, General Aharon Haliva, has resigned after accepting responsibility for failings that led to the October 7 attack.
Haliva is the first high-ranking Israeli official to resign after failing to prevent the Hamas attack, which sparked the Gaza war and put Israel's government and military under heavy scrutiny.
"The intelligence division under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with," Haliva said in his resignation letter. "I carry that black day with me ever since."
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Israel has reacted angrily to allegations that its principal ally, the United States, is considering penalizing the military's ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda unit for alleged human rights violations in the West Bank before the conflict.
"At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF (army) is the height of absurdity and a moral low," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X.
Netanyahu stated that the Israeli military will boost military pressure to "deliver additional and painful blows" to Hamas in the coming days, without going into detail.
Netanyahu has frequently stated that Israel will begin a ground attack on Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, despite international concern over the bulk of the territory's people who have fled there.
