Ahmed Kamel – Egypt Daily News
Israel’s government has agreed to open an investigation into the sweeping failures that allowed the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023, the deadliest attack in the country’s history, but public anger is mounting after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved to place the inquiry under his own authority.
After months of delaying any formal review, Netanyahu’s Cabinet on Sunday approved the creation of what critics are calling a diluted “government committee,” rather than the independent state commission traditionally appointed after major national disasters. Unlike a state commission led by a retired judge and empowered to demand testimony, the new government-run body will be shaped by Netanyahu himself. Full details are expected in 45 days.
Netanyahu has long insisted that any inquiry should wait until the war ends. But he now argues that the cease-fire that went into effect on October 10 provides room for the government to begin its review.
Opposition leaders and civil society groups immediately condemned the move, accusing the prime minister of trying to evade accountability.
“This government is doing everything it can to run from the truth and evade responsibility,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid, calling the decision “an insult to the victims of October 7 and to the soldiers who have fallen since.”
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel echoed the criticism, saying the government was “establishing a commission that will investigate itself. This is not an investigative commission, this is a cover-up commission.”
Pressure for a truly independent review has been building for months. The October 7 attack killed around 1,200 people and saw Hamas and allied militants take more than 250 hostages into Gaza. Nearly 500 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting since. Palestinian officials in Gaza say Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 69,000 people.
Public frustration is widespread: a poll last month by the Israel Democracy Institute found that nearly 75% of Israelis want a fully independent commission. Even among Netanyahu’s right-wing base, 68% supported an external inquiry. The survey questioned roughly 1,000 Israelis and had a 3.1-point margin of error.
Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, calling for Netanyahu’s resignation and demanding an inquiry free from political influence.
Netanyahu is already entangled in a long-running corruption trial unrelated to the war. He has frequently argued that Israel’s judiciary wields too much influence and said an independent inquiry would not have “the broadest possible public support.” Instead, he says, only “broad agreement regarding the composition of the commission” can restore public trust.
Multiple investigations by the Israeli military and security agencies have already identified serious intelligence and operational failures preceding the attack. However, the newly announced inquiry will also look at broader government decision-making and the long-standing political assumptions that shaped Israel’s approach to Gaza.
Critics argue those failures begin at the top. Many security officials including former senior officers who have resigned since October 7, say Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul, which sparked months of mass protests before the war, projected national instability and encouraged Israel’s adversaries.
Others point to Netanyahu’s broader Gaza strategy over the past decade: a policy of deterrence and containment that allowed Qatari cash to flow into Hamas-run Gaza while marginalizing the Palestinian Authority. An internal military investigation concluded that a central misconception was the belief that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. Military planners assumed Hamas could mount a limited ground assault through a handful of border points; on October 7, militants attacked through more than 60 routes.
As Israel prepares for what could be a defining moment of reckoning, many citizens fear that a government-controlled probe will fail to confront the full scale of state responsibility or the political decisions that left the country so dangerously exposed.
