Knesset guards violently prevent victims’ families from attending debate on Oct. 7 probe

Violence broke out in the Knesset on Monday evening as guards used force to physically prevent bereaved families and relatives of hostages from entering the plenum’s visitors’ gallery to watch a debate on probing the October 7 catastrophe, including a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

When 40 members of the October Council — which represents some 1,500 October 7 survivors, former hostages, and victims’ families — tried to ascend a stairwell leading to the gallery, they were pushed, hit and grabbed in what quickly devolved into a chaotic scrum.

Video of the incident shared by the group showed one guard wrestling a man to the floor and pulling him aside — with his forearm across the man’s throat. Three people subsequently required medical treatment, according to Hebrew media reports.

During the fracas, one member of the group called out to the guards that they were “hitting bereaved parents.”

Several of the relatives were seen crying and comforting each other after the violence and before they were finally allowed into the gallery, with some reciting the Kaddish prayer for the dead.

The father of Yarden Buskila, who was murdered on October 7 at the Nova festival, fainted during the clash and required medical attention, Channel 12 reported. In a video shared online, Shimon Buskila said he was “broken” by the incident.

אלימות מופנית כלפי משפחות שכולות ומשפחות חטופים שרוצות לצפות בדיון בכנסת על ועדת חקירה ממלכתית. pic.twitter.com/O4Z6J6yyLF

— דפנה ליאל (@DaphnaLiel) March 3, 2025

“Is this how bereaved families are treated? With us on the floor? Is that our place?” he asked.

Speaking with Channel 12 on Tuesday morning, Yaira Gutman, whose daughter Tamar was murdered at the Nova Festival, said that after being blocked by the guards, the families “tried to talk to them, explaining that we had permission.”

“We did not succeed. And then the rest of the parents arrived. And one of the parents called out, ‘Come, let’s go in.’ And yes, we pushed. And when we pushed the Knesset guards, we started to receive physical blows,” she said.

“They didn’t stand in a line to block us. They hit us. They dragged us to the floor. Some of us fell, some of us were dragged. A parent was beaten by one of the guards. Other parents got involved to try to extricate him. There was a huge fracas.”

Comparing the guards to a “street mob,” Gutman asserted that they had “clearly been instructed not to let us enter, and not to be nice to us” despite the fact that “we had been invited.”

The families were in the Knesset to attend a so-called 40 signatures debate — a plenum discussion that the opposition can call once a month and that the prime minister is legally obliged to attend — on establishing a state commission of inquiry into the failure to prevent the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre by Hamas in southern Israel and the events surrounding it.

Ahead of the debate, the families held a press conference in the Knesset demanding a state probe. Recalling the screams of those who were murdered and raped, Nova survivor Tali Biner told reporters that she no longer sleeps at night and demanded that Netanyahu establish a state commission of inquiry “to investigate what happened to us that day.”

“Without understanding the failures, we cannot correct them, and the next disaster is already at hand,” she said.

אחרי דקות ארוכות:
המשפחות השכולות קוראות קדיש מול משמר הכנסת שממשיכים לא לתת להן להכנס ליציע האורחים בכנסת.

רפי בן שטרית לא עומד בזה יותר. pic.twitter.com/z1CWAXJ80m

— Noa Shpigel (@NoaShpigel) March 3, 2025

‘Predetermined’ findings

Despite the families’ appeals, Netanyahu doubled down on his longstanding opposition to an inquiry into the catastrophe by a state commission, the most powerful investigative body, which has the authority to subpoena witnesses and which most analysts believe would be deeply damaging to the prime minister.

In a fiery speech, Netanyahu agreed that it was “crucial to investigate in depth the events of October 7 and what led up to it,” but that “this investigation needs to win the trust of the nation, or the overwhelming majority of the nation.”

Red-faced and shouting into the microphone, he called for an “objective, balanced, independent investigation… not a commission whose findings are predetermined.”

“What do you think? That we’re children?” he yelled, as he blasted the idea of a state commission, whose head would normally be appointed by the president of the High Court of Justice, which he claimed would lead to a partisan investigation. “That we don’t understand? That you say the word ‘state [commission]’ and that makes it one?

“The public demands the truth. We demand the truth,” he continued, banging on the rostrum. “We want a commission that will investigate everything, everything, with no exceptions.”

Netanyahu also accused his critics of engaging in a “fictitious and cynical campaign” against him “on the backs of the hostages’ families.”

Interrupted repeatedly by opposition members, several of whom were removed from the chamber, the prime minister said that, while Israel is fighting its enemies, it has to deal with those who “are drilling holes in the national ship.”

The group of bereaved relatives and families of hostages had by this stage been allowed into the gallery, which had been almost completely empty. During Netanyahu’s speech, several turned their backs on the premier in a show of protest — while others held up photographs of their loved ones.

The visitor’s gallery, which can seat around 200 people, is soundproofed and lawmakers in the plenum are unable to hear any yelling from above.

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana called for the families to be removed, as protest is not allowed in the plenum, but then appeared to walk back his demand at Netanyahu’s request, and said the relatives must show respect.

Plea from Yarden Bibas

Addressing the Knesset plenum early in the debate, National Unity MK Chili Tropper read a letter to Netanyahu written by recently released hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife Shiri and sons Ariel and Kfir were brutally murdered in captivity in Gaza.

My name is Yarden Bibas, and as my words are being read to you, I am sitting shiva for my wife, Shiri, and my children, Kfir and Ariel. Innocent, pure children who were taken from their home and murdered in captivity. They could have been saved and should have been saved,” Bibas wrote.

“The accursed terrorists stormed Nir Oz in flip-flops. My family and I were violently abducted from our home and dragged to Gaza. That cursed morning, the state was absent from Nir Oz. The only ones there were the local heroes — members of emergency response teams and brave soldiers who did everything in their power, and even paid with their lives,” he went on.

“And now, 514 days later, I have returned from Gaza to an unimaginable reality in which I had to bury my entire family in a single day. No one should ever have to endure such a nightmare. Yet despite my unbearable grief, I ask you at this moment to stop. This is not the time for vengeance.”

Bibas said, “I know that I will never again be able to hold my children or my wife,” but wrote that there were other hostages who could still be rescued, and called on Netanyahu to help bring them home.

Once all the hostages are home, he wrote, “I will be the first to support any action to dismantle Hamas. As a resident of Nir Oz, I fully understand that Hamas must be eradicated, otherwise we will never be safe. But we must never lose sight of the sanctity of life, the dignity of the dead, and our fundamental duty to leave no one behind — otherwise we will have lost our very identity.”

Bibas also urged the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. “Mr. Prime Minister, 514 days and nights have passed, and neither you nor your government have taken responsibility. The demand for a state commission of inquiry is not a political issue — it is a national consensus. Eighty-three percent of Israeli citizens are calling for it, alongside 1,500 families from the October 7 tragedy, including mine.

“This is not about personal blame, but about learning lessons to prevent the next disaster. Mr. Prime Minister, I urge you: Unite the people of Israel, bring us some peace of mind, heed the call of the nation and the grieving families. Announce immediately the formation of a state commission of inquiry that will strengthen Israel’s security, prevent another catastrophe, and provide answers to me and to all of Israel.”

And he invited Netanyahu to come with him to Kibbutz Nir Oz when he himself returns for the first time.

“I cannot stop thinking about how I failed to protect my wife and children. It is eating me alive. I had only a handgun, I was just an ordinary civilian in a peaceful kibbutz. Do you [in Israel’s leadership] ruminate over this? Do you struggle, as I do, to get through the day and the night without feeling a crushing weight of responsibility for what happened? Can you bring yourselves to say it, clearly and out loud?” he asked.

He concluded: “Mr. Prime Minister, I make one final request. I have yet to return to my home in Nir Oz. I do not know what awaits me there. I ask you to come with me — to walk beside me as I step into my home for the first time since October 7. Let us do this together. Because if we do not look this tragedy in the eye, we will never be able to recover.”

After reading the letter, Tropper walked over to Netanyahu to give it to him, but the prime minister did not look up, and Tropper then placed it in front of him.

11 שניות שמראות ניתוק .
חילי טרופר מגיש לו מכתב ממשפחת ביבס .
והאיש בכלל לא רואה וכנראה לא מעניין אותו.
עצוב. וכאזרח.
גם שובר לב.
???????? pic.twitter.com/5nN3EbGHXE

— YANIV HALIVA TOLEDANO ???????? (@htyaniv) March 3, 2025

Gantz and Lapid denounce PM

Both National Unity party chairman Benny Gantz and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded a commission of inquiry during the stormy session, with Gantz reading lawmakers a letter to Netanyahu written by Yarden Adam, the brother of Mapal Adam, who was murdered at the Nova festival on October 7.

The prime minister understands that a commission of inquiry is “inevitable,” Adam wrote, adding that “the only question is how much longer you will continue to tear apart and torment Israeli society and us in particular until we get there.”

Gantz declared that avoiding establishing an official probe “is a prelude to anarchy” and condemned what he said are government efforts to allow those under investigation to “choose the investigators.”

משפחות שכולות הפנו גב לנתניהו, אוחנה דרש לפנות אותם מהיציע pic.twitter.com/EbWf3toc3J

— עמיאל ירחי (@amiel_y) March 3, 2025

“We will not agree to any hybrid creation that will replace a state commission of inquiry,” Gantz told Netanyahu.

Last week, Likud MK Ariel Kallner presented a proposal for an alternative investigatory body whose members would be appointed by the Knesset in an effort to head off establishing a state commission of inquiry.

For his part, Lapid told Netanyahu: “The greatest disaster that has happened to the Jewish people since the Holocaust belongs to you. It will always belong to you.

“Any person on whose watch this disaster happened would take it with him to his grave until his last day,” he went on, adding that “there was never a government here that had so many reasons to ask for forgiveness.

“An entire country is in pain, anxious, angry, abandoned by a government that takes no responsibility for anything. Ask for forgiveness from them,” he urged the prime minister.

Lapid also took a jab at Netanyahu for losing his temper while being heckled and booed during his speech: “Prime Minister, you once gave me good advice: never lose your temper at the podium. I propose to give this advice to you. It was not an easy performance to watch,” he said.

“I think of the families sitting here, and I think of the soldiers in the army who see a prime minister losing his temper at the podium, why? Because you had a tough morning in court?”

לפיד פשוט צודק. pic.twitter.com/RbpWLBGM5c

— Hila Sarel (@HSarel59572) March 3, 2025

Following the debate, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party released a statement calling for a state commission of inquiry as well.

It proposed that the number of senior jurists eligible to head such a body be broadened, in order to “increase the general public’s trust.”

Calls for resignation

Following Monday’s violence, the October Council called on the Knesset speaker to step down.

“Yesterday, we sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, announcing the intention of dozens of bereaved families to come to the visitors’ gallery and watch the discussion on establishing a state commission of inquiry,” the group said in a statement.

“The Knesset speaker should resign today. By ordering bereaved families to be beaten by the Knesset Guard, [he has caused] the entire State of Israel to be ashamed of him,” the group said. “Our patience is running out.”

It is not clear that Ohana, who later ordered an investigation into the violence, had a hand in the guards’ conduct, although he was also blamed for it by Lapid, who called him “a partner in this disgrace.”

Speaking with Army Radio on Tuesday morning, MK Efrat Rayten (The Democrats) blamed Ohana for the incident, calling it “a moral stain.”

According to Rayten, Eyal Eshel, whose daughter Sgt. Roni Eshel was killed on the IDF’s Nahal Oz base on October 7, attempted to call Ohana’s chief of staff during the incident but was unable to get through. She said that Eshel then called President Isaac Herzog, who answered the phone.

In a statement, a spokesman for Herzog confirmed that he spoke with representatives of the families, including Shimon Buskila and Rafi Ben Shitrit, a former mayor of Beit Shean whose son Staff Sgt. Shimon Alroy Ben Shitrit was killed trying to stave off the Hamas attack on the Nahal Oz army base on the morning of October 7.

“The president wanted to hear the pain of the families and to strengthen them in light of events,” the statement said.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett called for Netanyahu himself to step down, stating that he should just “go home already.”