Bereaved families from the Gvura Forum addressed IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Monday in response to an order of the day he issued marking three years since the October 7th massacre, criticizing his statement that the IDF failed to defend Israel’s borders on October 7. They argued that a clear distinction must be made between the responsibility of the military’s senior leadership and that of the soldiers and commanders who fought on the ground.
In a letter issued by the forum’s leadership on behalf of the families, they wrote: “We read with great pain the order in which you wrote that ‘the IDF failed to defend the country’s borders on October 7.’ We, the families who have paid the heaviest price in this war, want to tell you: The IDF did not fail. Those who led it from above failed."
The families stressed that, in their view, the soldiers who fought on October 7 should not be swept into the definition of failure.
“The IDF is our sons and daughters, who fought bravely until they fell in battle. The IDF is the thousands of soldiers and commanders who rose that morning, charged toward the enemy, held it back, and saved the State of Israel from an even greater disaster."
“They were not the failure," the letter stated. “They were the ones sent to repair the consequences with their own bodies and blood."
The forum argued that Zamir’s wording blurred the line between the senior officials who made strategic decisions and the forces that fought on the front lines.
“To turn the failure of the senior leadership into a failure of the entire IDF is not merely a mistake in wording. It erases the distinction between those who made the decisions and bore responsibility, and those who fought to repair the consequences."
At the conclusion of the letter, the families called on Zamir to assign responsibility directly to those accountable.
“Mr. Chief of Staff, do not place the stain of failure on an entire army. Responsibility must be assigned where it belongs. The soldiers of October 7, both the living and the fallen, deserve a salute, not the stain of failure."