The full defense filing submitted by Lt. Col. Aryeh Amidror, the Gaza Division intelligence officer on October 7, has been revealed for the first time by Galei Tzahal.
The documents shed new light on the defense mounted by one of the key intelligence officers responsible for the Gaza sector before the Hamas attack, including his effort to reject professional responsibility for the failure to provide adequate warning of the impending war.
Amidror petitioned the court in March 2026 against the process of dismissing him from the IDF. The petition was initially kept confidential, and even after the court rejected his claims, a gag order remained in place covering the documents. His defense filing and the IDF's response have now been released for the first time, revealing sharp disagreements over responsibility for the intelligence failure, the investigations conducted within the military, and the decision to remove him from service.
One of the central elements of Amidror's defense concerns an NCO from the elite SIGINT force Unit 8200, who warned in the months before the attack about Hamas training exercises and their potential significance. Amidror argues that her work on the subject was initiated at his direction.
"Upon assuming my position as Gaza Division intelligence officer, I instructed a certain body within Unit 8200 to find Hamas training exercises in order to assess the enemy's tactical capabilities," the documents state. According to Amidror, "following an instruction given by the petitioner and at the direction of her commanders, the NCO found the exercise."
The petition also includes correspondence between Amidror and the NCO. In one message, he wrote: "To be clear, the purpose of my email was not to bring the assessment down but to raise it. In any event, I don't think this is a point of 'absolute and unequivocal disagreement,' because clearly, as more material is distributed, the area of agreement will grow. We are at the beginning of the process."
Amidror uses the correspondence to reject the claim that he completely dismissed her warnings. He says he even initiated a discussion on the subject "with the aim of challenging the prevailing concept and examining the division's underlying assumptions regarding the possibility that Hamas had the capability and intention to carry out a single or large-scale raid."
He further argues that a summary of the meeting was distributed up to the level of the IDF chief of staff, demonstrating that he acted "to undermine and challenge the underlying assumptions." According to Amidror, these actions were not given sufficient weight in the decision to dismiss him.
However, the account presented in the documents also highlights significant gaps in that argument. According to the report, Amidror did not invite the NCO to the discussion and did not allow her to present her assessment. The division commander was also not briefed on the intelligence developments until a later stage, while the discussion itself was scheduled only after the holidays - a detail Amidror acknowledges in his petition. That discrepancy lies at the heart of the dispute over his claim that he acted in real time to challenge the prevailing assessment.
The most striking claim in the former intelligence officer's petition, however, concerns his fundamental responsibility for the failure to provide a warning.
"The petitioner denies the claim that he failed professionally or bears command or professional responsibility for the failure to provide a warning of war," the filing states. It goes on to make an even broader assertion: "The mission of providing a warning of war is not the responsibility of division intelligence."
The IDF presents the opposite position. In its response to the petition, also revealed for the first time, the military defines the role of the Gaza Division intelligence officer as follows: "The Gaza Division intelligence officer leads all intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination efforts in the sector - management of the intelligence picture, warning, collection and research, and command advisory."
The documents also show that serving as Gaza Division intelligence officer was not Amidror's first senior intelligence position in the division. Several years before October 7, he served as head of the division's targets branch, giving him experience with the sector and its intelligence system across more than one position.
The IDF's assessment of his conduct is sharply critical. In its response to the court, the military states that it found "a series of professional errors and failures in the petitioner's conduct on the night preceding October 7, as well as beforehand, in assessing the security risk posed by the Hamas terrorist organization."
The military added: "The petitioner bears personal responsibility for the failures identified in his conduct - in the manner in which he exercised his judgment, the degree of oversight he maintained, and the level of professionalism he demonstrated in his position. Command responsibility means the commander's responsibility for what occurs in the unit under his authority."
The IDF also warned the court about the broader implications of accepting Amidror's arguments. According to the military, determining that command measures can be examined only through the question of individual legal responsibility could undermine the chief of staff's ability to take command action in other cases where he deems it necessary. "This result must not be permitted," the military wrote.
Toward the end of his filing, Amidror raises another argument: that he has been treated unfairly compared with other senior commanders who served in the system on October 7.
"The petitioner is the only commander in the IDF who is paying a real price, in the form of the loss of his rights, for the failures of the military and the state concerning intelligence and warnings about the intentions of the Hamas terrorist organization," he argued.
Amidror cites several senior commanders, including those of the Southern Command, Operations Directorate, Gaza Division, and Unit 8200. According to Amidror, they completed their positions and left the IDF while retaining their full social and pension benefits, whereas he will not receive the same rights.