Israel Parliament advances Bill for inquiry into Oct 7 failures

JERUSALEM - The Israeli Parliament approved a Bill in its first reading on July 6 to set up a commission of inquiry into the security failings that led to the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023.

“The purpose of the proposed law is to bring about a full, thorough, and independent investigation of the events of the... Oct 7 massacre” and the wars that followed, an explanatory note to the Bill said.

The Bill passed its first reading in the Knesset, Israel’s 120-seat Parliament, with 59 votes in favour and none against or abstaining.

Opposition lawmakers, who want a different kind of commission not appointed by politicians, boycotted the vote.

Under the proposed law, the commission’s six members would be appointed by a two-thirds majority of Knesset members.

In the absence of an agreement, however, three members would be appointed by the ruling coalition and three by opposition lawmakers.

Former hostages or bereaved family members would serve as observers, while the commission’s deliberations would be broadcast to the public, according to the bill.

Likud party lawmaker Ariel Kallner, who initiated the legislation, defended the body’s bipartisan composition.

“Only a commission appointed in an egalitarian manner will allow us both to uncover the truth and maintain the public’s trust. This will be a commission that can investigate any entity that influenced Israel’s security policy at its core,” he said in a statement published by the Knesset.

Opposition figures have said they would boycott a commission appointed by politicians.

In such a scenario, the power to appoint members would ultimately fall to the speaker of Parliament, effectively handing control of the process to the governing coalition.

The opposition has long called for the establishment of an independent state commission of inquiry, a mechanism Israel has frequently used to investigate major national failures in the past.

Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Israelis across the political spectrum support such a body conducting the probe.

Members of a state commission of inquiry would be appointed by the president of the Supreme Court, which has long been at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over a range of issues.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid explained the boycott of July 6’s vote.

“The opposition will not be part of a sham whose sole purpose is to whitewash and prevent the investigation of the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he wrote on X.

The Bill will now return to the Knesset Constitution Committee for further discussion ahead of final readings, which are expected to take place next week before the Knesset dissolves.

On July 2, thousands of people took to the streets in Tel Aviv and elsewhere across Israel to mark 1,000 days since the Oct 7 attack and to call for a state commission of inquiry.

Eight people were arrested for causing disturbances during the demonstrations, police said. AFP