Herzog said to host secret meetings on forming Oct. 7 state probe, ask bereaved families to sign confidentiality forms

President Isaac Herzog has been quietly convening consultations in recent months at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem aimed at reaching an agreement on a framework for establishing a widely sought state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre, Channel 12 reports, without citing sources.

According to the report, participants in the closed-door discussions have included representatives of bereaved families from the October Council, a large group of families who lost loved ones in the attack and are calling for a state probe, and the hawkish Gvura Forum, which represents dozens of families of soldiers killed in the subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza.

The four participating representatives — named as Yehoshua Shani and Menachem Klemenson of the Gvura Forum, and Eyal Eshel and Reut Hecht-Edri of the October Council — were reportedly asked to sign confidentiality agreements barring them from disclosing the existence or content of the meetings. They have been meeting roughly every two weeks, including in the past month, the report says.

Asked by Channel 12 for comment, Herzog’s office responded: “The President’s Residence fundamentally serves as a space for gathering, open dialogue, and conversation for all citizens of Israel. Various forums and diverse groups meet here in different frameworks regularly for the purpose of dialogue — even when the goal is not to reach agreements, but rather simply to listen, converse, and confront the complex issues that are tearing Israeli society apart. Meetings at the President’s Residence take place in a variety of formats, to enable such dialogue also among bereaved families who have lost what is most precious to them.”

Channel 12 adds that this initiative follows an earlier attempt by Herzog in May to promote a state commission of inquiry whose composition would have been determined by Supreme Court President Justice Isaac Amit in consultation with Deputy President Justice Noam Sohlberg. That effort was blocked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ultimately shelved, which the report says left victims’ families increasingly frustrated, potentially driving the new initiative.

Why the initiative was kept secret, whether or not the political echelon was aware of it, and what impact any potential agreements would have on the government remain unclear, the report notes.

Netanyahu has consistently opposed creating a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding October 7. His coalition is instead trying to establish its own probe, claiming that a sizable portion of the public would not accept the findings of a traditional state probe — which polls consistently show is the public’s preferred form of inquiry.