IDF Army Suggest Normal Maj.-Gen. Itay Offir will factor a couple of main choices referring to Gaza battle crimes allegations within the coming weeks, Israel Times has realized.
Amongst those choices, which would be the first that Offir will probably be publicizing on the subject of Gaza since he took administrative center in November 2025, would be the April 2024 International Central Kitchen incident, the March 2025 Palestinian Purple Crescent incident, and a couple of different high-profile incidents.
In many ways, those will probably be Offir’s opening transfer on his criminal taking part in box with the arena, having made some huge choices with most commonly Israeli implications in contemporary months.
One may name the IDF criminal department’s status at the global level part of the 3rd of his 3 circles by which he focuses his efforts, the Publish understands.
The primary circle is inside the IDF criminal department itself.
Palestinians mourn medics, who got here beneath Israeli fireplace whilst on a rescue challenge, after their our bodies had been recovered, in line with the Purple Crescent, at Nasser sanatorium in Khan Younis within the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025 (credit score: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/Report Picture)
Offir has a tall order of rebuilding the arrogance in regards to the IDF criminal department on a couple of planes, however the first one is inner.
When his predecessor, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, all at once resigned in October 2025, together with a few of her height team of workers, after admitting to illegally publicly leaking a video of proof within the Sde Teiman saga case, morale within the IDF criminal department was once at an rock bottom.
Inside the criminal group and within the govt extra widely, officers from the IDF criminal department had at all times typically been seen as extremely gifted {and professional}, they usually finally end up emerging to senior positions in massive corporations or to height posts in quite a lot of govt companies.
Considered one of Offir’s first jobs has been to rebuild that self belief.
To be able to do this, the Publish has realized that quickly after he took administrative center, he set about assembly, over a sequence of weeks, with each and every unmarried sub-unit of the sprawling IDF criminal department, which has a number of hundred attorneys and much more different give a boost to team of workers on each and every border and in each and every sub-arm, such because the air power and military.
It was once essential to Offir to listen to immediately from the IDF’s attorneys, in sufficiently small teams that even junior attorneys would talk freely, what they wanted with the intention to regain their swagger.
His 2d circle is between the IDF criminal department and the remainder of the IDF.
Right here, Offir has an enormous merit.
He already labored carefully for 2 years with IDF Leader of Team of workers Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, when the 2 labored on the Protection Ministry.
Put in a different way, he has already served as the highest legal professional of an company run via Zamir earlier than.
Simply as Offir was one in all Zamir’s key shut advisers, and now not only a legal professional, on the Protection Ministry, right through Operation Roaring Lion, the IDF MAG was once via Zamir’s aspect for lots of the battle.
For 40 days, the Publish understands that Offir relocated from his usual MAG administrative center house to the underground “Pit” the place Zamir controlled the battle daily with himself and only some different generals from the excessive command.
Between the ones 40 days and Offir’s a large number of visits to the entrance in Gaza and Lebanon, IDF officials have remarked that the brand new MAG is a lot more relaxed within the box with commanders at the entrance than Tomer Yerushalmi was once, and greater than every other predecessors, although they too visited the fronts now and then. In truth, Offir is peculiar in that he served as a fight fighter within the Givati Brigade, one thing unusual for many IDF MAGs.
All of this additionally gave Offir extra appreciate and affect in probably the most contemporary Iran battle choices, equivalent to transparent directives to evacuate positive Iranian websites, which Israel had a criminal proper to assault, however which might result in unpredictably high-profile collateral hurt.
New Army Suggest-Normal Itai Offir speaks right through his swearing-in rite, November 27, 2025 (credit score: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
The general circle is with the entire nation and the arena.
Referring to this circle, something this is other about Offir from some prior MAGs is if a few of them would emphasize the slogan of Israel and the criminal department must “win on all fronts,” he would consider that, however upload that first, the IDF should win its kinetic wars.
In different phrases, Offir is cognizant of the significance of IDF and Israeli legitimacy on the earth, however he perspectives his first task as facilitating the IDF to win battles – after all, at all times inside the confines of Israeli legislation and the spirit of the IDF.
This way will most probably to find desire with some in Israel who, rightly or wrongly, have felt that the IDF criminal department has infrequently held the army again an excessive amount of from appearing to win.
But, none of which means that Offir will move cushy on actual criminal problems.
In truth, Offir might go back some stricter order in quite a lot of spaces than the IDF surroundings that took cling beneath Tomer Yerushalmi following the October 7 invasion.
In Offir’s view, following the IDF’s senior officials’ failure to forestall the Hamas invasion, many commanders felt they’d misplaced the status to rebuke their squaddies for smaller disciplinary screwups.
It’s public file that squaddies had been swimming on Gaza’s seaside unauthorized within the early phases of the battle and {that a} sizable choice of lower-level officials ordered quite a lot of Gaza structures to be demolished with out right kind higher-up authorization.
Offir has been appearing and can proceed to behave to revive top-down self-discipline, each to make sure the legislation is adopted and to assist the IDF to go back to being a extra targeted war-fighting gadget the place orders are adopted and self-discipline is sacred.
WCK, Palestinian Purple Crescent high-profile alleged battle crimes incidents
In regards to the WCK incident by which Israel mistakenly killed seven global support staff, an interesting twist is that Offir himself isn’t making the verdict.
In prior capacities because the Protection Ministry criminal adviser, Offir it seems that labored very carefully with IDF Col. Nochi Mendel, a lead officer-suspect, on plenty of initiatives.
Even if this doesn’t essentially technically disqualify him from rendering a choice beneath “conflict of interest” definitions the way in which it will if the 2 had been members of the family, Offir didn’t really feel like he may objectively pass judgement on Mendel, or a minimum of sought after to take away even any belief of favoritism.
Because of this, IDF Leader Prosecutor Col. Eli Levertov will probably be issuing the verdict referring to WCK.
Levertov was IDF leader prosecutor in August 2025, simplest round two months earlier than Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation.
Then again, in regards to the Palestinian Purple Crescent case, by which the IDF mistakenly killed global support staff, and a few different case choices that will probably be issued, Offir’s broader way is obvious.
He’s going to now not glance into those instances in a vacuum or from the point of view of a legislation faculty professor in an ivory tower.
Reasonably, he’s going to have a look at the instances from the point of view of the IDF having been engaged in a battle to topple Hamas in Gaza as a reaction to an enormous and monstrous invasion.
He’s going to additionally remember of all of Hamas’s tactics of systematically the usage of human shields and civilian places all the way through the Strip to struggle the IDF, together with the usage of ladies and kids with white flags to check out to entrap and kill IDF squaddies.
In different phrases, there will probably be a heavy burden of evidence to satisfy earlier than concluding that an IDF soldier who killed blameless Palestinians did so with planned intent, versus via mistake in tricky cases and the grey fog of battle.
There could also be indictments and punishments for harming or killing Palestinians, equivalent to an incident in February the place IDF squaddies had been recorded beating an blameless Palestinian with none glaring motive, or an incident previous this month by which IDF squaddies killed a Palestinian child in a automotive.
The Publish understands that there are greater than 5 further incidents the place IDF squaddies beat Palestinians within the West Financial institution and are being probed or prosecuted since Offir took administrative center.
One distinction between Offir and different MAGs may well be that he might make much less of a public display in such instances, although Israel might make a decision, on the diplomatic point, to privately document them to global our bodies just like the Global Courtroom of Justice, so such our bodies can’t declare that Israel does now not prosecute its personal.
An Israeli police officer stands close to a gate, whilst protesters collect out of doors Sde Teiman detention facility close to Beersheba, in southern Israel, July 29, 2024 (credit score: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)Why Offir dropped the Sde Teiman indictments
One thriller has been how Offir made up our minds to withdraw the indictments in opposition to 5 IDF Drive 100 jail guard squaddies within the massive Sde Teiman case.
The IDF MAG wrote an in depth choice explaining the 2 facets of the talk at the factor and why it in the long run made up our minds to withdraw the indictments, whilst nonetheless now not clearing the 5 squaddies of non-criminal wrongdoing.
However there have been key issues that he didn’t cope with in his public choice.
For instance, one reason why he cited for chickening out the indictment was once that the Palestinian detainee whom the 5 squaddies had been accused of thrashing have been despatched again to Gaza.
With out his testimony, the prosecution’s case could be lacking main gaps.
However this element in and of itself raises a far higher query: how the heck did the IDF prosecution permit a central witness to be despatched again to Gaza earlier than the trial in opposition to his alleged attackers? Or a minimum of, why did they now not take his testimony beneath a pre-trial process, which is in particular equipped for doing so, the place there’s worry {that a} witness, particularly a international one, may not be reachable for testimony later?
Offir was once now not but in administrative center when the Palestinian detainee/alleged sufferer/key witness was once despatched again to Gaza in October. This was once authorized, or now not blocked, via Tomer Yerushalmi.
For the reason that in the long run she resigned for having leaked the Sde Teiman video in opposition to the 5 squaddies and behind schedule their trial for round a 12 months, it’s rather imaginable that she, satirically, additionally let the witness move with the hope {that a} plea deal could be reduce to finish the case and not using a trial and steer clear of her function in leaking the video being found out.
Pressed whether or not Offir would have made up our minds the case in a different way had the detainee’s testimony been taken earlier than he was once launched to Gaza, as equipped for via Israeli crook process, he would most likely demur. He would say that the debate surrounding the case about how badly the 5 squaddies have been harmed via the pre-trial leak of the video and the a couple of ways in which Tomer Yerushalmi and a few of her prosecutors broke the legislation would nonetheless have made the case unimaginable to win in courtroom, and ended in chickening out it.
Curiously sufficient, whilst Offir is obviously involved concerning the Global Legal Courtroom (ICC) and Global Courtroom of Justice (ICJ), like many different height Israeli officers, he didn’t appear to weigh the particular affect of his Sde Teiman choice on how the ones our bodies will transfer in opposition to Israel.
In different phrases, some may have mentioned it will be essential to deliver the 5 squaddies to trial, despite the fact that the prosecution misplaced, to turn Israel’s dedication to bringing its personal squaddies to trial once they allegedly beat Palestinian detainees.
Via chickening out probably the most few and big instances in opposition to Israeli squaddies for his or her remedy of Palestinians, Offir and the IDF could have undermined Israel’s credibility earlier than the ICC and the ICJ.
Offir would most likely reply that if he can’t win a case in courtroom, he can’t continue, irrespective of the affect of the ICC and the ICJ. He may additionally upload that those our bodies have already proven heavy bias in going after height Israeli officers.
A brand new twist is that the Publish has realized that it has now grow to be unclear what number of extra Sde Teiman-related indictments there could also be for a lot of questionable Palestinian detainee deaths.
In February, the Publish reported, in accordance with resources, that there may well be rather a couple of at the means.
On the time, the Publish additionally reported that even with the anticipated new indictments, most of the deaths had been most likely in reality instances of Palestinian warring parties who had been mortally wounded at the battlefield and taken again to Sde Teiman to peer in the event that they may well be stored and interrogated, however didn’t in the long run make it.
Nonetheless, it additionally seems that one thing unclear could have modified referring to every other attainable Sde Teiman instances, the Publish understands.
It’s value noting that during February 2025, an IDF soldier was once already convicted within the “small” Sde Teiman Palestinian detainee abuse case, with the defendant-soldier sentenced to attainable further jail time, on height of time he spent beneath arrest on the subject of the trial, if he would re-violate positive rules, and demoted to the rank of personal.
Certainly Offir has carried out super homework to make amends for all of the instances treated via Tomer Yerushalmi, however there may be gaps in those and different spaces, for the reason that he simplest got here into the image in November 2025 – in some circumstances, two years after the instances started.
Some other twist within the Sde Teiman instances is that a few the 5 squaddies who had been launched from being indicted controlled to return to their gadgets for sooner or later with out permission from height IDF officers.
As soon as their go back was once made public, the Publish has realized that they had been re-suspended and their direct commanders will sooner or later come to a decision about whether or not they are able to go back to carrier or whether or not the questions raised about their habits disqualify them from this, despite the fact that they weren’t convicted of against the law.
Prosecuting vandalizing Christian icons
On Would possibly 11, an IDF Brig.-Gen. and Department 162 commander Sagiv Dahan sentenced a soldier to 21 days in army jail as a part of a courtroom martial for desecrating a non secular Christian image in southern Lebanon. An extra soldier was once sentenced to fourteen days in army jail for filming the incident.
Even if Offir and the IDF criminal department weren’t discussed in IDF press releases and technically issued no ruling, the Publish has realized that he was once deeply eager about all sides of dealing with the incident.
Offir was once in reality some of the first to be informed of the incident amongst senior IDF officers and taken it to the eye of Zamir.
Additional, Offir spoke to Dahan and defined to him that there had to be severe penalties for the incident, however that there have been two paths for doing so.
In a single trail, Offir and the criminal department would take the lead, which might imply a protracted and painful trial, and in any case, the soldier would most probably obtain round the similar punishment as a couple of weeks in army jail. It could be tricky to provide a extra severe punishment, for the reason that no dwelling particular person was once harmed. Within the public’s eyes, this may additionally pit the criminal department in opposition to the IDF’s fight warring parties.
Below a special trail, Dahan himself may cling a court-martial and provides the warriors a harsh sentence, while not having crook criminal intervention. Offir expressed that this is able to be quicker, ship a sooner message to the arena of 0 tolerance, may result in the similar punishment, and would display a united IDF, with box commanders taking the lead in restoring self-discipline to their squaddies.
Dahan selected the second one trail, and Offir obviously believes that this despatched a more potent and extra unifying message for the IDF and Israel as an entire. The IDF criminal leader’s capability to move with senior IDF commanders got here in as an asset that now not all IDF MAG’s have had.
Looting in Lebanon
A linked factor has been that senior IDF officers have admitted that someday in April, there was once a development of a few IDF squaddies looting Lebanese properties of private possessions as a part of the invasion.
On one hand, the IDF treated this in a powerful means with Zamir issuing orders on April 28 to person battalion, brigade, and department commanders concerned within the Lebanon invasion to document studies inside of one week referring to whether or not incidents of robbery of Lebanese private belongings had befell of their particular gadgets.
The 5 divisions concerned within the Lebanon invasion were: 91, 36, 98, 162, and 146.
Publicly condemning the robbery, Zamir mentioned, “The incidents against our values which we have seen are the result of a long and complex period, but this does not justify them. We cannot compromise on our values.”
“The phenomenon of theft, if it exists, is a disgrace and could stamp a blemish on all of the IDF,” mentioned Zamir.
“He added, “if there have been incidents like this, we will be able to probe them. We would possibly not stand for this.”
Despite these strong statements, the Post understands that there are no expected indictments from Offir on the way – meaning that while the IDF may have stopped the trend once it became public, it does not seem it has dug hard to punish those involved.
This is somewhat striking as the IDF has prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced soldiers for looting from foreigners in past wars.
Sources indicated that it has been difficult to go over specific individuals when it seems that those soldiers who witnessed incidents of theft relayed their general impressions to media sources, but declined to file specific complaints to the military police.
2023 Jabalya mass casualties and Lebanon Reuters incidents
The Post has made repeated inquiries over the years and more recently with the IDF regarding large-scale or controversial mistaken killing incidents in October 2023, one in Jabalya in northern Gaza and one in Lebanon.
In Jabalya, up to 69 to 125 Palestinian civilians were killed in multiple air strikes. Some of the Jabalya incidents are among those which the IDF’s operational preliminary probes first started to look into early on in the war.
IDF sources had told the Post in 2023 that the purpose of one operation was to kill a senior Hamas official, and it appears that the IDF had factored in a small number of civilian casualties
However, the house that was struck led to the collapse of the tunnel below it, which in turn collapsed a range of nearby structures.
Despite this information, which the Post received off the record, Tomer Yerushalmi never gave a public and final official accounting regarding the incident, and there are no signs that Offir is planning to either.
The Lebanon incident involved IDF long-range strikes mistakenly killing Reuters reporters who had a car and gear clearly marked PRESS.
In 2023, IDF sources explained that essentially, the reporters were in a sort of kill zone area where they should not have been, so the IDF soldiers who killed them assumed they were Hezbollah. Further, the IDF sources suggested that based on the long distance and angle of what the IDF soldiers could see, they could not see the PRESS signs.
However, once again, Tomer Yerushalmi never issued an official public accounting, and it is unclear that Offir, coming in two years later, will do so, despite the event continuing to receive heavy and repeated coverage in the international media.
In the broader evaluation of Offir’s plans, the Post understands that it may take another five years to sort through and issue reports on whatever key incidents the IDF will decide to make public.
Critics will slam the IDF for being slow, given that some incidents are nearly three years old. Offir would likely respond that, with a war that, up until June, has not ever really completely stopped on all fronts, the clock for counting how long it takes to issue reports should start from the present. Also, he would say critics should take into account that the over 3,000 incidents being probed cannot all be investigated at once, if for no other reason, due to insufficient staffing.
Incidentally, five years would be around the expected end of his term , so Offir may intend to issue some controversial reports as he is leaving office.
GHF-IDF mid-late 2025 incidents
There continues to be a lack of information in the IDF legal division on the status of probes into the May – October 2025 incidents with Palestinians relating either to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or to IDF soldiers supervising the nearby perimeter to the GHF food aid sites.
The Post has learned that the IDF’s view is that most of the incidents the IDF or GHF are accused of regarding Palestinian civilian deaths are manufactured by Hamas or exaggerated. However, the Post has also learned that there were a series of incidents, likely in the single digits, in which IDF soldiers probably did mistakenly kill single-digit numbers of Palestinian civilians.
Collectively, this would not leave the IDF responsible for the immense number claimed by UN agencies, some claiming over 800 and some far more, but possibly in the low dozens.
These probes, the Post understands, are still at the operational stage and have not even reached the IDF legal division yet.
ICC/ICJ
Offir and the IDF MAG will always be a critical piece in addressing and combating claims against Israel at the ICC and the ICJ.
But one gets the impression that Offir will not look to be the lead player in combating the issue, as former MAG Avichai Mandelblit was against the infamous “Goldstone File” after the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict.
Rather, Offir has high respect for the IDF International Law Division and will seek to empower them and other arms of the government in the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, and National Security Council to fight these battles, which in any case, crossover beyond just the legal sphere.
Regarding South Africa’s recent decision to postpone its next move against Israel in its genocide case before the ICJ for another 18 months, which could push Israel’s next response into 2029, while some are optimistic that this gave Israel breathing room, Offir is concerned that Pretoria may simply be seeking to wait out US President Donald Trump before pouncing again.
Attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara at a Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting at the Knesset, in the Israeli parliament on September 30, 2025. (credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)Caught between attorney-general and government
To date, Offir has not yet had problems shuttling between top government officials like Defense Minister Israel Katz and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. This has been true despite the attorney-general and the government being at intense loggerheads now for over a year.
However, Offir knew both parties before this role.
In fact, he knew Baharav-Miara before either of them was in their current roles, and he worked closely with Katz as Defense Ministry legal advisor.
These prior relationships and his strong ability to stay focused have so far helped him work with both sides without getting caught up in the political conflict.
He disagreed with Baharav-Miara regarding some right-to-protest incidents during the most recent war, but even these disagreements are professional and respectful.
It seems that Offir has already, to a large extent, lifted the IDF legal division out of an initial funk it fell into after the Tomer-Yerushalmi saga.
Whether or not Offir can proceed to stick out of the attention of the home political and global battle crimes storms, whilst each serving to the IDF win kinetic wars, and keeping up its world legitimacy, is a tall order that he’s going to wish to solution within the future years.
