IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot. Photo: Facebook.

The Israeli Military Advocate General was called up to meet with the organizers behind the controversial IDF whistle-blower NGO Breaking the Silence following Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, the IDF chief of General Staff revealed at a gathering in honor of one of his predecessors, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center on Tuesday.

“I told [him] to examine their claims,” said Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, who described the soldiers’ complaints of fellow soldiers’ wrongdoing as more hearsay than testimony. Most of the meeting, he said, was spent with their saying, “So and so told me that he heard from someone else, etc.”

Nevertheless, Eizenkot assured, “We want to deal with this, because it will make a better IDF.”

Discussing IDF ethics, the chief of staff said every soldier is commanded “to carry out the mission in a way that is legal and in the spirit of the IDF and when it is not, it is the soldier’s obligation not to carry out the mission, not [merely] his right.”

“We’ve seen terrorism throughout the years and every death is like a universe unto itself. We are doing all we can to overcome the current phenomenon, but it looks like it will be with us for quite a while,” Eizenkot said.

“There are three main reasons for the escalation. The change of the status quo on the Temple Mount, the decline in Palestinian leadership and a difficult civil reality,” he said.

“The question being asked is how we can identify and deter lone wolves — a stabber who posts [online] and then two hours later goes out and commits an attack. It’s become much more complex, and this is the issue that we’re dealing with every day, especially in Judea and Samaria, where most of the military force is,” said Eizenkot, according to nrg.

Eizenkot said the current wave of terrorism challenged the IDF, because it differed from the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada, which the IDF ultimately managed to stop.

“The motivation to carry out terrorist attacks goes up and down over time,” he said.

“Although through our elite intelligence and approach we overcame suicide terror, it’s become complicated when the issue is an individual who doesn’t need organizational skills, an explosives lab, a transporter or a fixer, just the kitchen and the drawer and the knife inside of it,” said Eizenkot.

Eizenkot said 80 percent of attacks in the West Bank have been against Israeli security forces. “We made an attempt to understand who the suicide stabber is and it turned out that 95 percent of them are young men and women, single, who say they made the decision after watching television,” he said.