IDF Brig.-Gen. Daniel Hagari, a senior Navy officer, was appointed as the new IDF spokesperson in a ceremony in Tel Aviv last week, replacing Brig.-Gen. Ran Kochav.

Hagari is the first IDF spokesperson with a naval background.

On the background of reports of IDF reservists refusing to show up for training “in protest” of the government’s plans for judicial reform, Hagari promised to “keep politics out of the IDF.”

In an interview with Kan News on Friday, Kochav said: “I don’t know of a single case of refusal, certainly not regularly. Even reservists who expressed indignation about the protest issues actually spoke hypothetically – ‘if it passes, and if it happens.’…there was no training exercise that did not take place because of the protest.”

Military commentator Yossi Yehoshua wrote in Yediot Achronot on Friday that two points were noted in the IDF’s investigation into reports of IDF refusal – firstly, they were “reservists” who had long since been retired from service and made a media “tour” at the expense of the army; and secondly, many of those who threatened did not actually refuse to report for training exercises.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)