Israel’s military intelligence chief has resigned after taking responsibility for failures leading to the Hamas attack on October 7, the military said on Monday, as Israel carried out more shelling in war-battered Gaza overnight.

General Aharon Haliva is the first top Israeli official to step down for failing to prevent the Hamas attack, which triggered the war in Gaza and brought the government and military under intense scrutiny in Israel.

“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.”

Israel has meanwhile lashed out at reports that its top ally the United States was considering sanctioning the military’s ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion over alleged human rights abuses in the West Bank from before the war.

“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 said late Sunday that the Israeli military would increase military pressure to “deliver additional and painful blows” to Hamas in the coming days, without elaborating further.

The prime minister has repeatedly said Israel will launch a ground assault on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, despite international concern about the majority of the territory’s population who have taken refuge there.

Source: France 24