Israel’s army chief urges ‘systemic’ probe into Oct 7 attack

Polls revealed strong Israeli support across party lines for an inquiry into the government’s failure to prevent the Oct 7 attack. (AP pic)

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military chief called on Monday for a “systemic investigation” into the failures that led to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, as the government dragged its feet on establishing a state commission of inquiry on the matter.

Lieutenant general Eyal Zamir made the call following the publication of a report by an expert committee he himself had appointed, which, according to him, marks the conclusion of the military’s internal investigations into the Oct 7 attacks.

“The expert committee’s report presented today is a significant step toward achieving the comprehensive understanding that we, as a society and as an organisation, require,” Zamir was quoted as saying in the report.

“However, to ensure that such failures never recur, a broader understanding is needed – one that encompasses the inter-organisational and inter-hierarchical interfaces that have not yet been examined,” he added.

“To that end, a broad and comprehensive systemic investigation is now necessary.”

According to polls, a large number of Israelis across the political spectrum support the establishment of an inquiry to determine who is responsible for the authorities’ failure to prevent the attack, the deadliest in the country’s history.

But the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to set one up, arguing it cannot be established before the end of the war in Gaza.

Under Israeli law, the decision to create a national commission rests with the government, but its members must be appointed by the supreme court.

Netanyahu’s right-wing government, however, accuses the court of political bias and of leaning towards the left.

The effort to curb the supreme court’s powers lay at the heart of the government’s judicial reform plan – a project that deeply divided Israeli society before the war broke out.

‘Political tool’

On Monday, when pressed in parliament by the opposition to clarify his position on the creation of a national commission, Netanyahu accused the opposition of seeking to turn it into a “political tool”.

Instead, he suggested establishing an inquiry commission “based on broad national consensus,” modelled, he said, on what the United States did after the Sept 11 attacks – a proposal immediately rejected by the opposition.

Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

It triggered a two-year retaliatory campaign by the Israeli military in Gaza, which has killed at least 69,179 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The expert committee’s report acknowledged that Hamas’s attack “occurred against the backdrop of high-quality and exceptional intelligence that was already in the possession of various IDF (military) units”.

“From an internal military perspective, it is evident that despite the warning, the necessary military actions were not taken to improve the IDF’s alertness or readiness, nor to adjust the deployment of forces across the different arenas,” the report added.

The committee determined that most of the factors explaining the failure spanned several years and multiple branches of the military.

It said this indicated a “long-standing systemic and organisational failure.”

In February, an internal Israeli military investigation into Hamas’s attack acknowledged the armed forces’ “complete failure” to prevent the assault, saying that for years it had underestimated the group’s capabilities.