From the Liveblog of
Saturday, June 6, 2026
At Tel Aviv protest, sister of slain Gaza hostage accuses government of trying to ‘erase’ Oct. 7
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Merav Svirsky, the sister of slain Gaza hostage Itay Svirsky, denounces the government for appointing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private lawyer, Michael Rabello, as state comptroller, accusing it of doing all it can to “erase” the October 7 massacre.
“I and many others have already paid the price. My brother was kidnapped alive and was supposed to return alive,” she tells some 1,000 anti-government protesters at Habima Square.
“The government is doing all it can to erase the massacre, the abandonment, and its responsibility. It is doing everything in order to prevent an investigation of the truth. The government was not supposed to survive a minute after October 7, but they used every mental trick to survive,” she says.
“Nothing will make us forget October 7,” she says, and urges the opposition to unite and forge partnerships with the Arab community in order to defeat the government.
The state comptroller, who reports directly to the Knesset, is responsible, among other things, for the external oversight of the activities of government ministries and local government, and the financial affairs of political parties, safeguarding the public interest. The outgoing comptroller has also been probing the government’s role in the failures that led up to the October 7, 2023, massacre.
The office is meant to be independent of the prime minister and the government, making Rabello’s candidacy and now election particularly sensitive given his longstanding ties to Netanyahu and the allegations that coalition lawmakers were pressured to support him.
The Times of Israel Community.