Israel’s military announced the dismissal of three generals and disciplinary actions against several other senior officers over their failure to prevent the October 2023 assault by Hamas, the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

The move comes two weeks after Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir called for a “systemic investigation” into the failures that led to the onslaught, even as the government dragged its feet on establishing a state commission of inquiry despite public pressure.

The list of generals fired included three divisional commanders, one of whom was then serving as the military intelligence chief.

A military statement released on Sunday (November 23, 2025) said they bore personal responsibility for the armed forces’ failure to prevent the attack launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

The firing comes after all three had already resigned from their posts, including the former head of the southern command General Yaron Finkelman.

Disciplinary actions were also announced against the head of the navy and air force, along with moves against four other generals and several senior officers.

It remains to be seen how or if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might also be pinned with blame for having a role in the inability to prevent the Hamas onslaught.

For the past two years, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the failures that led to the October 7 attacks should be addressed after the war in Gaza ended.

According to polls, a large number of Israelis across the political spectrum support the establishment of an inquiry to determine who is responsible for the authorities’ failure to prevent the attack. Netanyahu’s Government has so far refused to form such a commission.

Hamas’s attack on southern Israel in October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people and sparked a devastating two-year war in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 69,756 people, according to figures from the Health Ministry that the U.N. considers reliable.

Military investigation

Earlier this month, a report by a committee of experts appointed by the military chief Zamir was published, marking the conclusion of the army’s internal investigations into the October 7 attacks.

The report concluded that there had been a “long-standing systemic and organisational failure” within the military apparatus.

The investigation also noted the military’s “intelligence failure” over its “inability to raise the alarm” over the attacks — even though the army had “exceptional, high-quality information.”

It also deplored “deficient decision-making processes and force deployment during the night of October 7, 2023” and pointed to failures across the military’s chain of command.

Israel’s Minister of Defence Israel Katz said on Monday (November 24, 2025) that he had tasked the defence establishment’s comptroller Yair Wolansky with examining the report to determine if further investigations were needed.

Following the announcement, Israeli media was rife with speculation that the comments marked the latest point of friction between Mr. Zamir and Mr. Katz, who have aired disagreements in the past over how to prosecute the war against Hamas.

Inside Gaza, on Monday (November 24, 2025), Israel’s military said its troops shot three militants who had crossed the so-called Yellow Line, an area its troops retreated to in accordance with a ceasefire agreement reached last month.

The military said two of the individuals killed had approached troops near the southern city of Khan Yunis, where the territory’s civil defence agency said two Palestinians had been killed by a drone strike. Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis also confirmed receiving two bodies and three injured Palestinians, including one in critical condition. Mahmud Bassal, the spokesman for the civil defence, said that one other person was killed by tank fire in Gaza City.

Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya confirmed receiving the body, as well as several people injured during the incident.

Hamas regularly accuses Israel of shifting the Yellow Line further into the territory it controls, calling it a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

The militant group said on Monday (November 24, 2025) that a “high-level leadership delegation” was in Cairo for the past two days, meeting with mediators to agree on terms for the second phase of a U.S.-brokered truce that began on October 10.

Published – November 24, 2025 07:14 pm IST

The opening to a Hezbollah tunnel shaft which Israel’s military says is 200 metres away from a UN post and within 1km from Lebanon’s border with Israel, in southern Lebanon, on October 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

In the backdrop of back to back attacks on the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL), UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres cautioned that attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law and “may constitute a war crime.” Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin, in a telephonic conversation with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant reiterated the importance of ensuring the safety and security of UNIFIL forces and Lebanese armed forces.

“The safety of UN personnel & property must be guaranteed. The inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times. Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law and may constitute a war crime. UNIFIL personnel & premises must never be targeted,” Mr. Guterres said on social media X.

As Israeli forces in Lebanon were hit by a drone attack by Hezbollah which killed four soldiers, Mr. Austin reinforced the need to “pivot from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible.” “I also raised the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and stressed that steps must be taken to address it. I reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering, enduring, and ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” he said in a post on X at 7 a.m. on Monday.

Also read | Israeli forces kill two Lebanese soldiers and injure two U.N. peacekeepers in separate strikes

Against the backdrop of the ongoing hostilities in southern Lebanon and despite attacks that have hit U.N. positions, injuring a number of peacekeepers in the past several days, “UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly,” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General said in a statement.

He said that UNIFIL continuously assesses and reviews all factors to determine its posture and presence and the mission is taking all possible measures to ensure the protection of its peacekeepers. “UNIFIL’s role and its presence in southern Lebanon is mandated by the UN Security Council. In this context, UNIFIL is committed to preserving its capacity to support a diplomatic solution based on resolution 1701, which is the only possible way forward.”

Referring to Sunday’s incident in which the entrance to a U.N. position was breached by Israeli armoured vehicles, Mr. Dujarric said, “The Secretary-General reiterates that the safety and security of UN personnel and property must be guaranteed and that the inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times without qualification.”

The Spokesman said that the SG calls on all parties, including the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), to refrain from any and all actions that put our peacekeepers at risk.

The UNIFIL which has over 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries was hit on four consecutive days from Thursday to Sunday injuring several peacekeepers.

Coded messages, landline phones, and pagers: following the killing of senior commanders in targeted Israeli airstrikes, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, has been using some low-tech strategies to try to evade its foe’s sophisticated surveillance technology, informed sources said.

The sides have been trading fire since Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, attacked Israel in October last year, triggering the ongoing war. While the fighting on Lebanon’s southern border has remained relatively contained, stepped-up attacks in recent weeks have intensified concern that it could spiral into a full-scale war.

Tens of thousands of people have fled both sides of the border. Israeli strikes have killed more than 330 Hezbollah fighters and around 90 civilians in Lebanon.

Israel says attacks from Lebanon have killed 21 soldiers and 10 civilians.

As domestic pressure builds in Israel over Hezbollah’s barrages, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has highlighted its ability to hit the group’s operatives across the border.

Electronic surveillance technology plays a vital role in these strikes. The IDF has said it has security cameras and remote sensing systems trained on areas where Hezbollah operates, and it regularly sends surveillance drones over the border to spy on its adversary.

Israel’s electronic eavesdropping is also widely regarded as among the world’s most sophisticated.

Hezbollah has learned from its losses and adapted its tactics in response, six sources familiar with the group’s operations said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

Cell phones, which can be used to track a user’s location, have been banned from the battlefield in favour of more old-fashioned communication means, including pagers and couriers who deliver verbal messages in person, two of the sources said.

Hezbollah has also been using a private, fixed-line telecommunications network dating back to the early 2000s, three sources said.

Code words

In case conversations are overheard, code words are used for weapons and meeting sites, according to another source familiar with the group’s logistics. These are updated nearly daily and delivered to units via couriers, the source said. “We’re facing a battle in which information and technology are essential parts,” said Qassem Kassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah. “But when you face certain technological advances, you need to go back to the old methods… whatever method allows you to circumvent the technology.”

Hezbollah’s media office said it had no comment on the sources’ assertions.

Security experts say some low-tech countermeasures can be quite effective against high-tech spying. One of the ways that al-Qaeda’s late leader, Osama bin Laden, evaded capture for nearly a decade was by disconnecting from the Internet and phone services, and using couriers instead.

“The simple act of using a VPN (virtual private network), or better yet, not using a cell phone at all, can make it much harder to find and fix a target,” said Emily Harding, a former CIA analyst now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

Hezbollah and Lebanese security officials believe Israel has also been tapping local informants as it zeroes in on targets.

Lebanon’s economic crisis and rivalries between political factions have created opportunities for Israeli recruiters, but not all informants realise who they are speaking with, three sources said.

On November 22, a woman from south Lebanon received a call on her cell phone from a person claiming to be a local official, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the incident. Speaking in flawless Arabic, the caller asked whether the family was home, the sources said. No, the woman replied, explaining they had travelled to eastern Lebanon. Minutes later, a missile slammed into the woman’s home in the village of Beit Yahoun, killing five Hezbollah fighters including Abbas Raad, the son of a senior Hezbollah lawmaker and a Radwan member, the sources said.

Hezbollah believes Israel had tracked the fighters to the location and placed the call to confirm whether there were civilians present before launching the strike, they said without disclosing further details.

Within weeks, Hezbollah was publicly warning supporters via the affiliated Al-Nour radio station not to trust cold callers claiming to be local officials or aid workers, saying Israelis were impersonating them to identify houses being used by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah also suspected that Israel was targeting its fighters by tracking their cell phones and monitoring video feeds from security cameras installed on buildings in border communities, two sources familiar with the group’s thinking and a Lebanese intelligence official said.

On December 28, Hezbollah urged southern residents in a statement distributed via its Telegram channel to disconnect any security cameras they own from the Internet.

By early February, another directive had been issued to Hezbollah’s fighters: no mobile phones anywhere near the battlefield. “Today, if anyone is found with their phone on the front, he is kicked out of Hezbollah,” said a senior Lebanese source familiar with the group’s operations.

Even in Beirut, senior Hezbollah politicians avoid bringing phones with them to meetings, two other sources said.

Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based security consultant who has written a history of Hezbollah, said the group’s “awareness and wariness” of security breaches was at an all-time high. “Hezbollah has had to tighten up its security far more than it needed to do in earlier conflicts,” he said. However, Israel retains a technological advantage, Mr. Blanford said.

Jerusalem:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has announced that Aiman Zaarab, a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad Rafah Brigade, was killed in an airstrike on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah.

ELIMINATED: Aiman Zaarab

Zaarab was one of the Islamic Jihad Rafah Brigade commanders, responsible for the Islamic Jihad Nukhba force’s attack on Kibbutz Sufa and the Sufa military post during the October 7 massacre.

Along with Zaarab, two additional Islamic Jihad terrorists… pic.twitter.com/Kh5l2Nk7rI

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 4, 2024

Zaarab directed the Islamic Jihad’s elite forces during the October 7 onslaught on Kibbutz Sufa and the Sufa military post bordering the Gaza Strip, the IDF was quoted as saying on Saturday by Xinhua news agency.

Zaarab had “commanded and directed” several attacks, and over the past few days, he led the Islamic Jihads’ preparations for combat in the southern Gaza Strip against the Israeli military, according to the IDF statement.

Along with Zaarab, two other Islamic Jihad operatives were killed during the strike, the IDF added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tel Aviv:

The deputy chief of Hamas’s intelligence bureau, Shadi Barud was killed in a strike in the Gaza Strip today, according to the Israel Defence Forces.

The IDF accused Barud of working with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to prepare the attacks in southern Israel on October 7.

Prior to this, Barud led battalions in the Khan Younis region and held various positions in the terror group’s intelligence directorate.

Taking to social media platform X, the IDF wrote, “Shadi Barud, Deputy Head of Hamas’ Intelligence Directorate has been eliminated by an IDF aerial strike. He took part in the planning of the October 7 massacre and countless other deadly attacks carried out against Israelis.”

“We will continue to strike and eliminate Hamas leaders and operatives responsible for the barbaric attacks,” it added.

According to the Israel Defence Forces, Barud “was responsible for planning numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians,” The Times of Israel reported.

Notably, the Israeli fighter jets carried out overnight airstrikes over 250 Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip including a rocket launch site that was hidden between a mosque and kindergarten, Times of Israel reported on Thursday.

IDF has called this “another proof” that terror group Hamas uses “civilian sites for terror purposes”.

The sites struck by Israel included Hamas infrastructure, command centers, tunnels, and rocket launchers, according to the IDF. The IDF said that the rocket launchers were “placed in the heart of civilian areas that fired toward Israeli territory throughout the war.”

Israeli Air Force also said in a statement about attacking over 250 terror targets of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“Terrorist infrastructure, combat tunnel shafts and launchers in a civilian environment; The Air Force attacked over 250 targets of the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the last day, fighter jets of the Air Force attacked more than 250 targets of the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Air Force posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Meanwhile, the families of 224 hostages have been notified about their keen being held in the Gaza by Hamas, Times of Israel reported.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that the military has so far notified the families of 224 hostages that their loved ones are being held in the Gaza Strip.

He said that the number is not final as the military investigates new information.

Notably, the number does not include four released hostages — mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Ra’anan, freed on Friday night, and elderly women Yocheved Lifshitz and Nurit Cooper released on Monday night, Times of Israel reported.

Hamas launched a massive terror attack on Israel on October 7, which killed over 1400 people and left several more injured.

After this, Israel launched a strong counter-offensive against Hamas units in Gaza strip.

According to the health ministry of Hamas, the death toll in Gaza has crossed 7,000, Times of Israel reported.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. President Joe Biden is considering a trip to Israel in the coming days but nothing has been finalised, a senior administration official said Sunday. The news comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been traveling around the Mideast this past week trying to prevent the war with Hamas from igniting a broader regional conflict

In an interview on Sunday, the president warned Israel not to reoccupy Gaza, in his strongest public effort to hold Israel back.

“I think it’d be a big mistake,” Mr. Biden said. “Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas, and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.”

Still, he said, “taking out the extremists … is a necessary requirement.”

– AP

New Delhi:

The Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) today released footage showing and elite unit rescuing over 250 hostages near the Gaza security fence. Sixty Hamas terrorists were also killed as the Israel’s military’s “Shayetet 13” unit stormed the Sufa outpost.

The IDF said 250 hostages were rescued, while “over 60 Hamas terrorists were neutralised and 26 were apprehended, including Muhammad Abu A’ali, the Deputy Commander of the Hamas southern Naval Division.”

In the video released, the Israeli soldiers can be seen going inside the building and gun shots can be heard. A soldier is seen firing from behind cover and another throws a grenade at the outpost.  

״שייטת, שייטת, תישארו בבונקר, אנחנו באים!״ לוחמי שייטת 13 בקרב על מוצב סופה

כוחות יחידת שייטת 13 בסדיר ובמילואים הוזנקו במסוקים תוך זמן קצר עם הגעת הדיווחים על החדירה בגבול עזה בשבת בבוקר וחברו לכוחות הלוחמים בשטח למאמץ משותף.
הכוחות החלו בלחימה ביישובי העוטף ובים במקביל>> pic.twitter.com/dSQTqqj2yr

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 12, 2023

“Go on, light them up. Clear, clear”, a soldier can be heard as they scan the premises. Another soldier can be seen escorting a hostage out of the bunker. He is the held against the wall, “Put a pistol to him. I got him”, he says.

Also Read| Gazans Fight For Survival Amid Siege, Top US Diplomat Visits Israel

The soldiers then went inside the bunker and assured the hostages that they are here to “save” them and if they need “any first aid”.

Later in the footage, soldiers can be seen carrying a stretcher.

Today, marks the seventh day of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war with peace proposals nowhere on the table. At least 1,200 have died in Israel and another 1,400 in Gaza strip since the war began. Besides, the bodies of 1,500 Hamas operatives were found in the Israeli territory, the government has claimed.

The unit was deployed to the area surrounding the Gaza security fence in a joint effort to regain control of the Sufa military post on October 7.