JERUSALEM: Major General Herzi Halevi was appointed Israel’s new military chief of staff on Monday, in a ceremony hosted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We will prepare the army for war on fronts near and far,” Halevi vowed at the ceremony, at the start of his three-year term.

A former military intelligence chief, Halevi was serving as deputy to his predecessor, Aviv Kohavi, until taking the helm.

Netanyahu said Israel will not get dragged into “pointless wars, but on decisive days we will fight”. The appointment of Halevi, who led forces along the Gaza border, comes as violence surges in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian boy shot dead by Israeli troops near Bethlehem

The army operates alongside other Israeli forces in the Palestinian territory, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Halevi’s nomination as Israel’s 23rd army chief has been criticised by some members of Netanyahu’s government, because it was made by the former defence minister Benny Gantz shortly before elections last year.

Gantz’s successor, Yoav Gallant, attended Monday’s ceremony at the Israeli Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem.

The new military chief was born in 1967 to a religious Jewish family in Jerusalem and enlisted as a paratrooper in 1985.

He advanced in various command positions before joining the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit in 1993, according to the army.

Halevi served as commander of Sayeret Matkal for three years from 2001, and then continued to climb the ranks.

He became head of military intelligence in 2014 and head of the southern command in 2018, the army said.

Married with four children, Halevi lives in Kfar Haoranim, which is partially a settlement in the West Bank.

Thirteen Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of this year, the majority shot dead by Israeli forces.

Palestinian boy killed

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian boy on Monday near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, where the army said they opened fire after people threw Molotov cocktails.

Omar Khmour, 14, was shot in the head early morning in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the southern West Bank and succumbed to his wounds, the ministry said.

The Israeli military said troops opened fire after “suspects hurled rocks, explosive devices and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers”. He is the second boy killed in Dheisheh during an Israeli military incursion so far this month.

One person was arrested by troops in Dheisheh, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the army had entered the camp “at dawn and launched a campaign of raids on citizens’ homes.” Khmour is the 14 Palestinian killed in the West Bank since the start of the year, including civilians and fighters, the majority shot dead by Israeli forces, according to an AFP tally.

Following a series of fatal attacks targeting Israelis last March and April, Israeli forces launched near-nightly raids in the West Bank in which scores have been killed.

The violence in 2022 made it the deadliest year in the West Bank since United Nations records began in 2005.

At least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians were killed across Israel and the Palestinian territories last year, according to AFP figures.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2023