Court lifts anonymity of Israeli intelligence officer at center of October 7 scrutiny
N12 reported that Aryeh Amidror's identity could be published following a legal battle over his service and anonymity.
Israel's Supreme Court has allowed the public naming of the Gaza Division's intelligence officer during the October 7 attack, removing an anonymity restriction in a case that touches on military secrecy, personal privacy and public accountability.
The officer is Lieutenant Colonel Aryeh Amidror. N12 reported the decision on October 1, after a legal battle over both the end of his military service and disclosure of his identity. He had previously been identified in public reporting by an initial.
According to News1's account of the ruling, Supreme Court President Isaac Amit rejected Amidror's appeal against a lower court's decision permitting publication. The case was numbered 36544-09-26. The report said the state's revised position—that there was no longer a security obstacle to naming him—was central to the decision.
News1 reported that Amidror argued for continued protection of his identity until he left military service and questioned whether the relevant security officials had authorized the change in position. The court rejected those arguments, according to the publication, and lifted the suspension preventing disclosure.
The identity ruling is distinct from determining responsibility for the attack. N12 said the military had assigned Amidror command responsibility for failures preceding it. A military assessment of professional responsibility is not a criminal conviction, and permission to publish a name does not itself prove the allegations associated with it.
Reporting on his conduct has focused on the interpretation of Hamas's attack plan, known as Jericho Wall. Walla said warnings from a Unit 8200 specialist and border observers were dismissed despite indications that Hamas was preparing to carry out a raid. It also reported that an expert review criticized the military's treatment of the plan.
N12 said Amidror took up his role in May 2023. The broadcaster carried his lawyer's earlier response that he entered the position only months before the attack, after Hamas had already spent years preparing, and remained committed to the process of establishing what happened.
That response matters because the failures under examination involved information collected and assessed across different units and periods. Naming one officer allows scrutiny of his decisions; it does not reduce the wider chain of command or the intelligence system's performance to that individual alone.
The immediate change is therefore one of transparency. Readers can now identify an officer whose conduct has been discussed publicly for years and assess the allegations alongside his response. The court's full judgment and the underlying military findings remain the controlling records for the precise legal reasoning and the scope of any professional sanction.
