Israel’s governing coalition has confirmed it will not establish a commission of inquiry into the events of, and the state failures leading up to, the October 7 attack before the upcoming parliamentary elections.
In an update provided to the High Court, ministers said they had run out of time to pass legislation establishing such a commission prior to the dissolution of the Knesset last week.
The final days of the parliamentary session saw a packed schedule, with the coalition pushing through a number of contentious bills, including legislation enshrining Torah study as a national value, freezing arrests and prosecutions of Charedi draft dodgers, paring back the powers of the attorney general and overhauling the regulations on Israel’s broadcast and news media.
However, intense disagreement over the nature of any inquiry – particularly whether its members should be appointed independently or by ministers – and a near 11-hour filibuster of the bill relating to the attorney general saw the law to establish the investigation bumped from the agenda.
As such, bereaved families will now have to wait until after polling day on October 27, and potentially several weeks thereafter while a new coalition is built, before the prospective inquiry can be established.
That would also push the start of any inquiry back to at least three years after the atrocity occurred in 2023.
"The way in which the [October 7] events are investigated is at the heart of a political argument between the parties standing for election,” read the government’s filing to the court, urging justices not to intervene in the decision.
"For these reasons, it is not appropriate that the court issue a ruling on this issue or intervene over it at this stage,” it added.
It comes after the coalition repeatedly rejected the possibility of a state commission of inquiry, with its members appointed by the court, first arguing that such an inquiry could not take place while Israel was at war in Gaza, and then with Iran, then claiming, as several cabinet ministers alleged, that Supreme Court President Isaac Amit could not be trusted to appoint an impartial chair for the panel.
Instead, the current proposal would see a six-person commission appointed by a supermajority of the Knesset – at least 80 of the 120 MKs.
If no candidates could be agreed, the bill would then allow the coalition and the opposition to each nominate three panel members.
However, it stipulates that the inquiry can begin as long as at least three members are in place, meaning that the commission could continue operating even if made up entirely of government appointees.
It would also be down to the panel to determine the scope of the inquiry, with Prime Minister Netanyahu previously insisting it must examine the impact of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the 2005 Gaza disengagement and the 2023 protest movement opposing his government’s controversial judicial reforms.
The bill passed its first reading in the Knesset by a margin of 59-0 after the opposition boycotted the vote and is now on hold during the election campaign.
Opposition politicians and organisations representing bereaved families have accused Netanyahu of attempting to “whitewash” the issue and direct attention away from failures in government policy and instead trying to deflect blame onto the IDF, security services and previous governments.
The October Council, which represents over 200 bereaved families, has accused the coalition of "burying the truth".
"The Knesset members who voted today against establishing a state commission of inquiry see us — the bereaved families, the residents of the south, the victims of October 7 — as enemies," said the group after one such vote last October.
"Instead of joining our fight for the truth, they repeatedly choose to fight against us and the State of Israel."
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