The head of Israel's military intelligence directorate resigned on Monday, becoming the first senior figure to quit over failures surrounding the traumatic attacks by Hamas on October 7 which set off the war in Gaza.
Major General Aharon Haliva was stepping down to take "leadership responsibility”, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement, thanking him for his service.
Shortly after the war began, Mr Haliva publicly said that he took the blame for not preventing the deadly assault by Hamas, as the head of the military department responsible for providing the government and IDF with intelligence warnings.
Despite prior evidence that Hamas was preparing some kind of attack, the IDF was taken unawares when Palestinian fighters stormed through Israel's border defences, going unchallenged for hours as they killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages into Gaza.
Israel’s resultant invasion in Gaza is now in its seventh month and has claimed more than 34,000 Palestinian lives, according to local health officials, devastating much of the coastal strip and triggering warnings by aid agencies of famine.
While Mr Haliva and other military commanders have accepted blame, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to bow to widespread demands by Israeli protesters for his own resignation.
He is vowing to launch a full-scale ground offensive on the southern Gazan city of Rafah, despite warnings from Israel’s allies not to.
"In the coming days, we will increase the political and military pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to bring back our hostages and achieve victory. We will land more and painful blows on Hamas - soon," Mr Netanyahu said on Sunday.
Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah killed 22 people, including 18 children, Palestinian officials said on Sunday. More than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million has sought refuge in the city from fighting elsewhere.
The US is on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to Israel after an aid package tied to Ukraine finally overcame Republican opposition in the US House of Representatives.
But President Joe Biden and Mr Netanyahu are again on collision course over reports that Washington is preparing to impose sanctions on an IDF unit comprising ultra-Orthodox soldiers, who stand accused of human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.
"If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF, I will fight it with all my strength," the Israeli prime minister said.
The Axios news site on Saturday reported that Washington was planning to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has operated in the occupied West Bank.
The unit was created to allow Haredi Jewish men to serve as combat soldiers in the Israeli military in accordance with their strict observance of religious law.
On Friday, the US announced a series of sanctions linked to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, where violence has surged against Palestinian civilians during the war in Gaza.
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, a centrist former armed forces chief, said on Sunday that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and asked him to reconsider the matter of sanctioning Netzah Yehuda.
The State Department said Mr Blinken spoke with Mr Gantz and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant about Israel's security, efforts to ensure the conflict in Gaza does not spread and the need for an immediate ceasefire and increased flow of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.
It not mention sanctions, after Mr Blinken on Friday said he had made "determinations" regarding accusations that Israel violated a set of US laws that prohibit providing military assistance to individuals or security force units that commit gross violations of human rights.
