Last update - 00:00 26/07/2007
Navy Chief Ben Ba'ashat announces resignation
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Major General David Ben Ba'ashat submited a letter of resignation on Thursday, terminating his tenure as Israel Navy Chief.
Israel Defense Forces Chief Gabi Ashkenzei and Defense Minister Ehud Barak received Ben Ba'ashat's letter and thanked him for 37 years of service in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ben Ba'ashat served as the commander of the Israel Navy for three years.
Ben Ba'ashat's resignation comes in the wake of severe criticism of navy failures during the Second Lebanon war.
The veteran navy commander is the latest of a string of high ranking officials to step down after the inconclusive war, in which Hezbollah fired almost 4,000 rockets at northern Israel despite a full-scale offensive of Israeli ground, sea and air forces.
Defense Minister Amir Peretz, then IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, and an area military commander resigned earlier. The war also cost Prime Minister Ehud Olmert most of his public support, and he faces pressure to step down.
A government inquiry's preliminary report on April 30 heaped scathing criticism on all three senior officials but directed its sharpest barbs at Olmert, blaming him for hasty decisions and failure to set out attainable objectives.
The outgoing commander of the naval commando sent a harsh letter to Ben Ba'ashat several months after the end of the war, in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Navy's top echelon during last summer's fighting in Lebanon.
He also criticized Ben Ba'ashat's failure to investigate in depth the incident in which the Hezbollah fired an Iranian-made missile at Navy vessel "Hanit" off the coast of Lebanon, killing four and wounding dozens.
It emerged that since Israel did not believe Hezbollah had weapons to attack its ships, the navy did not activate the on-board anti-missile system.
Ben Ba'ashat, 53, worked his way up through the ranks of the navy after joining in 1969. He served as defense attache in Singapore and graduated from the Newport Naval War College, according to his official biography.