Brig. Gen. (res.) Amit Sa’ar, who led Israel’s Military Intelligence Research Division during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, has died after an aggressive brain cancer, the army said, two years after he stepped down from his post.
Sa’ar was appointed head of the Military Intelligence Research Division (Aman’s Research Department) in late 2020, serving as Israel’s top intelligence assessor through a period that culminated in the October 7 Hamas onslaught. He retired from the IDF in April 2024 after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, ending more than two decades in senior intelligence and Southern Command roles.
In public remarks and farewell letters after the attack, Sa’ar accepted responsibility for the intelligence failures that allowed the Hamas assault to surprise Israel, writing that the division “did not live up to what was expected of us” and pledging to take responsibility in the “moral world” in which he lived. Despite sharp criticism of the intelligence establishment, he was not accused or convicted of any crime, and former chiefs of staff later praised him as a dedicated officer who faced the failure with candor.
Sa’ar’s tenure included warnings to Israel’s political leadership in 2023 that internal turmoil over the government’s judicial overhaul risked emboldening Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, even as he continued to assess that Hamas was deterred from a large-scale war. Colleagues have noted that in the days after October 7 he urged focusing Israel’s war effort on Gaza rather than opening broader fronts, a stance some later described as helping avert a wider strategic misstep. He is survived by his wife and three children.
