Government moves to appoint own probe into Oct. 7, nixing state commission....Times of Israel, Nov 16, 2025
The government on Sunday decided to establish its own probe into the failures surrounding the Hamas invasion and massacre on October 7, 2023, rather than set up the state commission of inquiry that is traditionally formed to investigate significant disasters and that is supported by a strong majority of Israelis.
Despite being touted as an “independent” investigation, the government commission’s mandate will be determined by cabinet ministers, and the government will strive for its makeup to receive “as broad public approval as possible,” the government decision noted.
According to the decision, the commission will have “full investigative authority,” although the scope of that authority was not publicly specified.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a special ministerial panel that will be in charge of determining the commission’s mandate, including the topics and timeframes that will be probed, according to the decision. The ministerial panel will have 45 days to submit its recommendations to the government.
The government has opposed the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 onslaught, in which Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians murdered amid horrific acts of brutality, and abducted 251. It was the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust and the worst disaster in modern Israeli history.
State commissions of inquiry have been established in the past to look into major military failures, including the events of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon in 1982.
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Despite Sunday’s decision, the cabinet failed to agree on how the new commission should be organized or the scope of its investigation.
Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli called for a panel in which both the coalition and opposition could veto candidates, the Maariv daily reported, while the Calcalist site quoted Minister Ze’ev Elkin as proposing that conservative justice Noam Solberg, the High Court’s deputy president, choose its members.
In a long post on Telegram, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote that he recommended that the government amend the law in order to allow retired High Court justices to select the members of the panel, insisting that “it is important to maintain the principle that the political leadership does not determine the composition.”
Several firebrand politicians expressed strong opposition to any judicial involvement, with both Regional Cooperation Minister Dudi Amsalem and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calling on the commission to investigate the courts and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
The coalition is also reportedly seeking to broaden the scope of the investigation beyond the October 7 attack, the failures that allowed it to occur and the subsequent war, and look at the supposed impact of anti-government protests and decisions by the High Court of Justice on Hamas’s decision to attack.
The investigation would “include the role of the High Court, the role of former defense ministers, and the role of the [anti-government] protest movement,” Ynet quoted a senior Likud official as saying last month.
Members of the anti-Netanyahu bloc in the Knesset slammed the government decision on Sunday, with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declaring that it was “doing everything it can to escape the truth and evade responsibility.”
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-moves-to-appoint-own-probe-into-oct-7-nixing-state-commission-of-inquiry/
