Levin to head ministerial panel setting powers of government’s Oct. 7 inquiry; Ben Gvir, Smotrich will be members

17 November 2025, 11:01 pm

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, right, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, left, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 10, 2023. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

Justice Minister Yariv Levin of the ruling Likud party will head the ministerial panel that will determine the powers of the government’s controversial commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs announces.

In a letter to members of the government, Fuchs also names the ministers who will be on the panel. They are:

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism);
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit);
Minister in the Finance Ministry Ze’ev Elkin (New Hope);
Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud);
Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud);
Settlements and National Missions Minister Orit Strock (Religious Zionism);
Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu (Otzma Yehudit);
and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud).

The special ministerial panel will have 45 days to submit its recommendations to the government regarding the commission’s mandate, including the topics and timeframes that will be probed.