Lapid: State comptroller’s Oct. 7 probe designed to help PM avoid state commission of inquiry
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tells representatives of the State Comptroller’s Office that he does not trust their investigation into October 7.
“I do not believe this probe has clean hands,” Lapid says, according to a statement put out by his spokesman.
He alleges that State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman ordered his investigation “only to help Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu evade his duty to establish a state commission of inquiry.
“Instead of talking about responsibility and objective investigations, it would be proper for the comptroller to make sure that the Prime Minister’s Office does not shred and change protocols, and establish a state investigative committee immediately,” he says.
Responding to Lapid, Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf criticizes his “unbridled arrogance” in attacking Englman, stating that “as public representatives, we are obligated to maintain and fortify the status of the gatekeepers in the State of Israel, who are entrusted with the maintenance of law and order.”
Englman announced in December that he would conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the military’s multi-level failures. In June, the High Court ordered Englman to suspend his probe but later allowed it to go forward in a limited manner.
Addressing the Israel Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Englman excoriated the country’s political and military leaders, accusing them of impeding inquiries into Hamas’s October 7 massacre and refusing to take any responsibility for it.
