IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi on Saturday issued a highly irregular public letter addressing the growing criticism against the IDF following the death of Border Police officer Barel Hadaria Shmueli on the Gaza border nearly two weeks ago.
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"A society that does not back its soldiers and commanders, including when they make mistakes, will discover that it has nobody to fight for it," Kohavi wrote in the letter, which was addressed to army commanders.
Shmueli's family, right-wing activists and opposition members of Knesset have accused the military of issuing overly restrictive rules of engagement that they claim prevented troops from keeping the rioters from the border fence.
The IDF on Friday released the initial results of an investigation into Shmueli's death, saying: "The review revealed that the combat procedure and operational preparations for the violent riots were conducted in a thorough and comprehensive manner and included reinforcement of qualified and trained troops, among them marksman and snipers."
The statement continued: "It would have been correct to deploy the troops and use them differently once the violent masses reached the defensive wall. At the same time, no issue was found in terms of the rules of engagement, which were not changed at any point before these events or during them," the military said.
The military's investigation found that the Northern Gaza Brigade commander may have been slow to respond when the rioters rushed the fence. Only after the masses reached the barrier did he order the soldiers that had been stationed farther back to take positions closer to the border, where they could more effectively repel the rioters, according to the probe.
The IDF's initial probe found that Shmueli himself fired a number of shots during the riot along the security barrier, which bolstered the belief that the rules of engagement protocols were not an issue.
The findings of the IDF probe were presented to Shmueli's family on Friday morning by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano. Shmueli's family rejected the IDF's inquiry and called for an independent one, blaming his death on the government.
In his letter, Kohavi warned that the country must be prepared to lose soldiers in order to have "resilience" and told commanders to be willing to take chances.
"The readiness to sustain loss of life [in the defense of Israel] is crucial to national resilience, and that resilience is vital to the continuation of our very existence," he wrote.
Alluding to the IDF investigation of Shmueli's death, Kohavi noted that in times of combat, "decisions are usually taken in situations of uncertainty, and quickly, therefore there is always the possibility of mistakes being made." It was the IDF's obligation to thoroughly investigate, "to get to the truth and learn the lessons, but mistakes of judgment on the battlefield are not matters for blame and punishment," stated Kohavi.
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"Commanders and soldiers, you have my fullest backing. Continue to initiate and to take responsibility, to dare, and to bear the consequences," he wrote.
"The backing we give you relates first and foremost to the system of command and leadership in the IDF. We will not change it; we will bolster it. This is not only an issue for the IDF, it is an issue for the State of Israel, and at its heart is the question of what kind of military commanders it wants – bold and full of initiative or defensive and hesitant. Be bold," Kohavi said.
