Bereaved parents, former hostages demand state commission of inquiry at Tel Aviv protest

Some 1,500 people gathered in Habima Square in Tel Aviv this evening to demand a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7, 2023, attacks.

Among those in attendance were former hostages Louis Har and Clara Marman, as well as Michel Illouz, the father of slain hostage Guy Illouz.

Illouz, in a speech at the demonstration, addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, telling him that he is owed a state commission of inquiry.

Guy, 26, was wounded and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Nova music festival on October 7, and later succumbed to his wounds in Gaza.

“You owe me! You owe it to my son! And to his friends who were murdered next to him, and to those who blocked the door to their bomb shelters until they couldn’t any more, to those who hugged their children one last time before they were murdered, to the soldiers who rushed into battle, to those who went into the reserves, to the families who were left behind,  to the residents who still don’t have homes, to those who lost an arm or a leg or their soul,” Illouz implored.

A state commission is owed, he said, “to this country, which was deathly afraid that this would be its end.”

Shir Mathias, whose parents, Shlomi and Debora,h were murdered in their home in Kibbutz Holit on October 7, also attended and spoke at the protest, organized by the October Council.

“I am an orphan because the Israeli government abandoned my parents,” Mathias said at the demonstration. “I am an orphan because the country failed, and I am an orphan because the person who leads it lies to all of us.”

Netanyahu “lies to our faces. Lies to the bereaved families,” she said. “I hear him talk about victory, and I only see graves.”