Herzi Halevi says Hamas worked to convince Israel it did not want war

Herzi Halevi, the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told an audience in New York that Israel's security establishment had believed Hamas was not seeking war, and that Iran sat at the top of the country's list of threats. Ynet reported that Halevi described the order of priorities as Iran first, then Hezbollah, and only then Hamas.

According to Joe Truzman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Halevi said Hamas deliberately fostered that belief, encouraging Israel to think the group cared more about running Gaza than about launching a war. Truzman wrote that the remarks were made at a conference held by Shurat HaDin in New York on November 1. Halevi said Hamas had put "significant effort" into steering Israeli thinking toward that conclusion, Truzman reported.

What Halevi said about the assumption

In Truzman's account, Halevi described an assessment held jointly by the IDF, the Shin Bet and Israel's political leadership. Under that view, Hamas wanted to show it could provide for the roughly two million people living in Gaza, with a longer term goal of gaining control of the West Bank. The point Halevi made, as reported, was that this reading of Hamas was not simply an Israeli error made in isolation but one that Hamas actively worked to reinforce.

Ynet framed the same remarks around the Hebrew word Israelis use for this pre-war mindset, often rendered as the "concept" or konseptzia. In Israeli public debate, the term refers to the set of assumptions about Hamas's intentions that shaped security thinking before the attack, and it has become shorthand for what went wrong. According to Ynet, Halevi set out the hierarchy of threats directly as part of explaining that mindset.

The failure of October 7

Ynet reported that Halevi addressed what Israelis call the mechdal, a Hebrew word meaning a grave failure or blunder, which in this context refers to the security failure that allowed the Hamas attack of October 7. Halevi said he could account for how the events of that day unfolded "down to the small details," according to Ynet's rendering of his words.

He also rejected claims that the attack was made possible by treachery from within. Ynet quoted him as saying there was "100%" no betrayal. At the same time, he urged that "hard questions" be asked, the outlet reported.

On the hostages

Halevi also spoke about the hostages taken into Gaza. Ynet reported him acknowledging that Israeli bombs had killed hostages, while arguing that without military pressure Israel would not have brought them back. The remark addresses one of the most painful disputes in Israel since the war began: whether military operations helped or endangered the people held in Gaza.

The institutions involved

The IDF is Israel's military, and its chief of staff is the most senior officer in the armed forces. The Shin Bet, also known as the Israel Security Agency, is Israel's domestic security service and is responsible for intelligence on Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas. Hezbollah is the Iran-backed armed group based in Lebanon, on Israel's northern border. Hamas is the Islamist movement that governed the Gaza Strip.

Shurat HaDin, which hosted the event according to Truzman, is an Israeli legal advocacy organisation known for pursuing lawsuits against groups and states it accuses of supporting terrorism. Truzman is an analyst at FDD, a Washington-based research institute focused on national security, and his report was published as a post on X.

How the two reports differ

The two accounts agree that Halevi spoke in New York and discussed the prewar assessment of Hamas. They emphasise different parts of the talk. Ynet focused on the ranking of threats, the denial of betrayal, the call for hard questions and the hostages. Truzman focused on Hamas's role in shaping Israel's assessment and the specific content of that assessment, including Gaza's population and the West Bank ambition. Neither report contradicts the other, but each includes material the other does not.

What the reports do not say

Neither report gives the full text of Halevi's remarks, and the available material is brief. They do not explain what evidence Halevi cited for his view that Hamas deliberately misled Israel, or what the "small details" he says he can explain actually are. They do not say which hard questions he believes should be asked, or of whom. Neither report records any response from the current IDF leadership, the Shin Bet or the Israeli government to his comments. Nor do they say how many hostages he was referring to when he said Israeli bombs had killed some of them.