After six months, in letter to IDF chief, head of Military Intelligence Maj. General Aharon Haliva finally admits personal failure for intel collapse, paraphrases Spiderman: ‘with authority comes heavy responsibility.’

Israel’s top military intelligence official announced that he was resigning over his central role in the failures that led to the Hamas October 7 onslaught.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, chief of the Israel Defense Forces’s Military Intelligence Directorate, will leave the military after a replacement is found, the IDF reported.

The move was coordinated with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and approved by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He will be the first senior officer to quit over the debacle, although another general announced he was resigning over a cancer diagnosis.

Other top defense, Shin Bet, and intelligence officials have admitted responsibility for the invasion but none till now has announced reisgnation plans.

It took Haliva more than 6 months to draw the obvious conclusion. “The Military Intelligence Directorate, under my command, failed to warn of the terror attack carried out by Hamas,” Haliva said on October 17. “We failed in our most important mission, and as the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, I bear full responsibility for the failure.”

“Now, more than half a year later, alongside the launch of [internal] investigations, I am tendering my resignation,” Haliva wrote in a letter publicized Monday.

Haliva wrote that “along with authority comes heavy responsibility,” continuing with vast understatement: “The Intelligence Directorate under my command did not fulfill its task. I have carried that black day with me ever since, every day, every night. I will forever bear the terrible pain of the war,” he wrote to Halevi.

Haliva said he supports the establishment of a commission of inquiry to “be able to investigate and find out in a thorough, in-depth, comprehensive and precise manner all the factors and circumstances that led to the grave events.”

Haliva was updated at around 3 a.m. regarding “certain signs coming from Gaza” about an imminent attack, but reportedly went back to bed, opting not to join consultations on the urgent matter.

Haliva was quoted as later as saying that, even if he had participated in the consultations, he would have concluded that Hamas was apparently carrying out a drill and that dealing with the matter could wait until the morning. “It wouldn’t have changed the final result in any way,” he reportedly said.