Daijiworld Media Network – Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Nov 11: Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, has called for a “systemic investigation” into the failures that led to Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government continues to delay setting up a formal state commission of inquiry.

Zamir made the call after receiving a detailed report from an expert committee he had appointed, marking the conclusion of the army’s internal investigation into the October 7 assault. “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,” he said.

“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, urging for a wide-ranging national-level investigation.

Despite growing public pressure, the Israeli government has resisted calls for an official inquiry, arguing that it cannot be established until the ongoing war in Gaza concludes. According to polls, a majority of Israelis across political lines support an inquiry to determine accountability for the country’s worst-ever security failure.

Under Israeli law, only the government can initiate a national commission, with members appointed by the Supreme Court — an institution Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition accuses of political bias. The prime minister’s earlier judicial reform efforts, aimed at curbing the court’s powers, had sparked massive protests and deep divisions within Israeli society before the war.

During a parliamentary session on Monday, Netanyahu accused the opposition of trying to use the inquiry as a “political tool.” He instead proposed an investigation “based on broad national consensus,” similar to the U.S. inquiry after the September 11 attacks — a suggestion quickly dismissed by the opposition.

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, left 1,221 people dead on the Israeli side, mostly civilians. It triggered a two-year retaliatory campaign in Gaza, where at least 69,179 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The expert committee’s findings revealed that the assault occurred “against the backdrop of high-quality and exceptional intelligence” already available to several IDF units. Despite this, it said, “the necessary military actions were not taken to improve alertness or readiness, nor to adjust the deployment of forces.”

It concluded that the root causes of the failure extended over several years and across multiple military branches, describing the situation as a “long-standing systemic and organisational failure.”

Earlier in February, an internal army probe had also admitted a “complete failure” by the Israeli Defence Forces to prevent the assault, acknowledging that for years, the military had severely underestimated Hamas’s capabilities.