Defense Minister Israel Katz pressured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday into holding separate meetings with him and with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir to try to resolve their public war of words over how the IDF has probed itself regarding the October 7 disaster and regarding the future of senior IDF appointments.
Late Monday night, Netanyahu announced that he would hold a three-way meeting to resolve the dispute, which has shaken the defense establishment.
However, Katz refused to join a three-way meeting and insisted on separate meetings.
First, the defense minister met with Netanyahu, and some hours later, Zamir met with the prime minister.
Following the meetings, wildly contradictory rumors proliferated regarding how Netanyahu would resolve the dispute.
Netanyahu may demote Katz
According to one report, he may demote Katz and send him back to the Energy Ministry. According to that report, Gideon Saar would become defense minister and Eli Cohen would become foreign minister to replace him.
However, other reports denied this as fake news, and slammed Zamir for not properly respecting Katz as his civilian superior.
Still, other reports suggested that Katz would win the battle between the two men, and that the price of that "win" would be forcing the resignation of IDF Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder for his role on October 7.
Finally, other reports said to ignore all of the rumors and to wait patiently for Netanyahu to issue his resolution of the affair, saying he will know how to best reach closure.
Zamir on Monday night had called Katz out for interjecting politics into the process and trying to substitute a single lower-ranked official's judgment for the judgment of 12 higher-ranked IDF ones.
The latest war between the two titans is several months in the making, since Katz has interfered in IDF promotions in an almost unprecedented fashion, leading to a freeze that is causing many top officers to retire, rather than wait to see how the dust settles.
Until now, Zamir has mostly avoided a public breach with Katz in order to defer to him as his civilian superior and not to run afoul of Netanyahu, his sponsor.
One of the points that Zamir may seek to win or clarify on Tuesday is whether he can dislodge Netanyahu from lockstep support of Katz's efforts to undermine Zamir, though initially all signs are that the prime minister had encouraged those efforts.
The IDF chief and the prime minister were close for many years, dating back to when Zamir worked as his military secretary, but had a major public break over Netanyahu's desire to continue the Gaza invasion after July, the point at which Zamir said pressing the invasion was likely to start elevating the danger to the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Netanyahu could still take Katz's side, but he may not want to do so with Zamir generally very popular following his successful management of the war with Iran in June, and as the prime minister turns toward a potential new election.
However, Katz launched a surprise strike on the IDF chief on Monday morning, announcing that Defense Ministry Comptroller Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yair Volansky would second-guess a commission that Zamir had established by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Sammy Turgeman to give a final verdict on the October 7 IDF probes, including personal responsibility for top General Staff officials.
He said that Volansky’s probe of Turgeman's one would last 30 days and that he would continue a promotions freeze during that time.
Turgeman's probe itself was a second-guessing investigation of the October 7 probes managed by Zamir's predecessor, Lt.-Gen. (res.) Herzi Halevi, which were released this past February.
Katz was upset at Zamir for not vetting his decisions on each IDF General Staff official with him beforehand. One of the major anticipated decisions had been Binder's fate, since Turgeman found that the intelligence chief had failed personally on October 7, but Zamir wanted to keep him on because of his major victories over Hezbollah, Syria's military, and Iran.
In turn, Zamir responded Monday night to Katz that he had vetted the entire Turgeman report with the defense minister before presenting it to the public on November 10, and that the consequences for his top commanders are his decision alone, not the political echelon.
The IDF chief took particular umbrage that Katz issued his announcement while Zamir was with soldiers in the field in the North, drilling for potential combat operations with Hezbollah in Lebanon and for potential Syrian invaders.
In addition, Zamir made a not-so-veiled counterstrike at Katz, Netanyahu, and the political echelon, who have blocked any attempt to probe their responsibility for October 7, strongly implying that the defense minister is being hypocritical to continue to focus so much energy on criticizing the IDF when the political class is avoiding even one iota of personal responsibility.
More specifically, Zamir took aim at Katz for continuing a freeze on promotions, including replacing the IDF defense attaché in Washington and appointing the next chiefs of the air force and the navy, posts which will be left vacant as of April 1, 2026.