The IDF legal division’s rollout of its probes into alleged war crimes in its conduct of the Gaza War has been delayed again, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
On June 18, the Post exclusively reported that IDF Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itay Offir would be issuing multiple major decisions regarding the Gaza war crimes allegations within the coming weeks.
The April 2024 World Central Kitchen incident, the March 2025 International Red Crescent incident, and a few other high-profile incidents, in which sizable numbers of foreign aid workers or civilians were killed, were expected to be among these decisions, which were to be the first that Offir would have been publicizing relating to Gaza since he took office in November 2025.
The source for the delay is unclear, but it appears to be based on pressure from outside the IDF legal division, and possibly outside the IDF itself.
Further, the Post has received the impression that the Justice Ministry would have supported publication of the reports as originally scheduled.
Moreover, the Foreign Ministry did not deny that it had sought to delay publicizing the report, though it also did not confirm.
Prime Minister’s Office denies being source of delay
The Prime Minister’s Office responded that they were not the source of the delay.
However, generally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have taken a combative approach, as opposed to a dialogue approach, to any allegations of IDF war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) specifically, and by international judicial bodies in general.
While the dialogue approach of sharing the maximum amount of information available and as rapidly as possible from IDF probes was Israeli policy before October 7, 2023, since the start of the war, prying loose details about IDF probes has been more like pulling teeth.
Top Israeli legal officials have expressed concern that any data they provide could be abused by the ICC, the International Court of Justice, and others in war crimes cases.
In 2024, the IDF issued a couple of very general and generic updates about its probes, but the last update was filed in August 2024.
As early as mid-2024, and then again in January 2025, and in multiple instances since then, top IDF sources committed to or implied to the Post that decisions on high-profile probes would be published very soon.
However, it appears that when IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir replaced Herzi Halevi, the rollout was delayed, and eventually there were other delays, likely with pressures from beyond the military.
The next watershed moment came in October 2025, when Offir’s predecessor, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, suddenly resigned along with some of her top staff. She resigned after admitting to illegally publicly leaking a video of evidence in the Sdei Teiman saga.
It was clear that when Offir took office, there would be some kind of a pause in rolling out public announcements, as he would need time to study the cases himself before making decisions and approving material for publication.
Some sources are at least hopeful that the report will still be published before Israel’s upcoming October 27 elections, and that such election considerations will not delay the report further.
WCK, Islamic Red Crescent high-profile alleged war crimes incidents
Regarding the WCK incident, a fascinating twist is that Offir himself is not making the decision.
In prior capacities as the Defense Ministry legal adviser, Offir apparently worked very closely with IDF Col. Nochi Mendel, one of the key commander-suspects, on a number of projects.
Although this does not necessarily violate the “conflict of interest” definition to technically disqualify him from rendering a decision the way it would if the two were family members, Offir did not feel that he could objectively judge Mendel, or at least wanted to remove even any perception of favoritism.
For that reason, IDF Chief Prosecutor Col. Eli Levertov will be issuing the decision regarding WCK.
Levertov became IDF chief prosecutor in August 2025, only around two months before Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation.
However, regarding the International Red Crescent case and a couple of other case decisions which will be issued, Offir’s broader approach is clear.
He will not look into these cases in a vacuum or from the perspective of a law school professor in an ivory tower.
Looking at the cases in perspective
Rather, he will look at the cases from the perspective of the IDF having been engaged in a war to topple Hamas in Gaza as a response to a massive and monstrous invasion.
He will also take note of all of Hamas’s techniques of systematically using human shields and civilian locations throughout the Strip to fight the IDF, including using women and children with white flags to try to entrap and kill IDF soldiers.
In other words, there will be a heavy burden of proof to meet before concluding that an IDF soldier who killed innocent Palestinians did so with deliberate intent, as opposed to by mistake in difficult circumstances and the gray fog of war.
There may be indictments and punishments for harming or killing Palestinians, such as an incident in February where IDF soldiers were recorded beating an innocent Palestinian without any obvious cause or an incident earlier this month in which IDF soldiers killed a Palestinian baby in a car.
The Post understands that there are more than five additional incidents where IDF soldiers beat Palestinians in the West Bank and are being probed or prosecuted since Offir took office.
One difference between Offir and other MAGs could be he may also make less of a public show around such cases. Still, Israel may decide on a diplomatic level to privately report them to international bodies like the International Court of Justice so such bodies cannot claim that Israel does not prosecute its own.
