Bereaved families boycott Knesset meet on political Oct 7. probe, establish own committee

By Ariela Karmel

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19 January 2026, 2:04 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

Bereaved families call for a state commission of inquiry into October 7 at the Knesset in Jerusalem, January 19, 2026 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Over a hundred bereaved family members who lost relatives during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, announce that they are establishing a “Committee for Advancing the Law on a State Commission of Inquiry” into October 7 in opposition to government efforts to establish a political commission of inquiry.

“In a fair world, the Knesset should have voted months ago to establish a state commission of inquiry. Instead, members of the ‘government of failure’ are currently debating the promotion of the cover-up committee law, aimed at burying the truth about October 7,” says the October Council in a statement.

The announcement comes as opposition MK Simcha Rothman’s Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee met to discuss the political inquiry.

The October Council says that they “refused to participate in the performance and decided to boycott the discussion.”

As a result, the group announces that it is establishing a “Committee for Advancing the Law on a State Commission of Inquiry,” and demonstrating how a “Knesset committee would look in a fair world.”

The committee will be chaired by Rafi Ben Shitrit, whose son, Staff Sgt. Shimon Alroy Ben Shitrit was killed on October 7 while attempting to fend off Hamas terrorists in southern Israel, and “bereaved families and professional experts” will appear before the committee.

“We will not cooperate with the cover-up committee, nor allow a government whose failures are engraved in the blood of our loved ones to choose the investigators, the questions, or the boundaries of truth,” the Council says.

“A state commission of inquiry is not a political gesture but a moral obligation of the state to its citizens. Anyone preventing it today consciously chooses the side of concealment, fear, and evasion of responsibility. We are here to remind everyone: the truth will be investigated, with or without the cooperation of the cover-up government,” it continues.

The government is currently advancing a highly controversial bill sponsored by Likud MK Ariel Kallner to set up a politically appointed probe, largely opposed by hostage families and relatives of those murdered on October 7.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the formation of a state commission, favored by the October Council and the majority of bereaved families, and has resisted pressure to do so throughout the more than two years since the deadly Hamas onslaught. Netanyahu has claimed that, because a state commission is appointed by the judiciary – whose powers his government has sought to curb – it would be biased against the government.