Comptroller blasts political, IDF chiefs for failing to ‘bear responsibility’ for Oct. 7
Speaking at Bar Association conference, Matanyahu Englman accuses the military of building ‘high and impassable walls’ to stymie his probe into its failures surrounding the attack
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman excoriated the country’s political and military leaders in a speech on Tuesday, accusing them of impeding inquiries into Hamas’s October 7 massacre and refusing to take any responsibility for it.
“In Israel, as of September 2024, there is no one who has taken personal responsibility with action alongside it — not at the political level, not at the security and military level, and not at the civilian level,” Englman declared in a speech at the Israel Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv.
“There has not been a single person among the elected officials, bearers of public office, military leaders and the security establishment, who has met the proper standard and the expected time when it comes to upholding the value of bearing responsibility,” the state comptroller added.
Englman upbraided the IDF in particular for resisting his efforts to conduct a review of the military’s actions before, during, and after the Hamas attack, and also chastised the Prime Minister’s Office for holding up and interfering with his review.
The comptroller announced in December that he would conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the military’s multi-level failures. In June, the High Court ordered Englman to suspend his probe into the military and the Shin Bet “in view of the complex security reality.”
Englman on Tuesday criticized the defense establishment for trying to stop his review of the IDF’s actions before October 7, saying it has “built high and impassable walls which have led to the stymying of the review,” adding that “the Prime Minister’s Office, for its part — even though it has provided material — is still putting up obstacles which are hindering and disrupting the required professional activities.”
In response to Englman’s comments, the IDF issued a statement saying that it respects the office of the comptroller and is open to criticism that does not “harm the war effort and the attention of the military leadership — as the High Court ruled.”
The IDF added that — as it said in its response to the court earlier this year — Englman’s suggested probe would “cause real and tangible harm to the security bodies’ operations.” The military said that Englman had rejected its proposal to begin a narrower investigation into a limited number of topics.
In his speech Tuesday, Englman blasted military and political officials, saying that “all of them, at different levels of severity, do not convey the public and principled resilience expected of them, which at its foundation is a readiness [to accept] real criticism, without limitation, even if the results are biting and tough.”
He said he believes that it is “very doubtful if it will be possible to restore this value in the future.”
Israel’s top military intelligence official, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, who headed the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, resigned in April over his role in the failures leading to October 7, while the commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, resigned his post in June for the same reason.
Englman also lamented routine leaks from classified forums, such as the security cabinet, in which various senior officials and politicians have leaked information designed to push responsibility onto others.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not issue a response to Englman’s harsh public criticism on Tuesday. In May, the PMO pushed back against the comptroller’s claim that it was not cooperating with his investigation, saying that contrary to his accusations, “every request is answered in full, including all questions regarding the prime minister, even though all the PMO teams are working around the clock on the issues of the war.”
In announcing his wide-ranging probe in December, Englman vowed to “leave no stone unturned” in his investigation of the failures surrounding Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which thousands of terrorists stormed into Israel and slaughtered around 1,200 people, wounding thousands more and taking 251 captive to the Strip.
“This is an event that has changed the reality on a national level,” the comptroller said last year. “The reality that existed until the day of the massacre cannot continue. This premise underlies the planning of the state audit of the conduct of all the parties in the periods leading up to the massacre, on the day of the massacre itself, and in the events that Israeli citizens faced afterward.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
