From the Liveblog of
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Parents of slain hostage urge public to vote only for parties that support a state commission of inquiry
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Hagit and Ruby Chen, parents of slain captive soldier Itay, call on the public to vote only for parties that pledge to form a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.
“We’re not standing here to ask for pity. We’re here to demand answers,” Hagit Chen says to the roughly 200 people who came to the weekly anti-government protest on Tel Aviv’s Habima Square. “Who knew, who warned, who ignored, who’s responsible.”
“We call from here to every party and everyone that seeks the public’s trust in the election: Are you going to form a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7? Yes or no?” she says. “Whoever is unwilling to commit to seeking the truth — we call on you not to give them your vote.”
Ruby Chen says the government’s failure to form a state commission of inquiry nearly three years after the Hamas attack “is an evasion from seeking the truth and taking responsibility.”
חייבים להחליף.
כמו שנתניהו אמר אחרי מלחמת לבנון השנייה: לתת לממשלה האחראית על מלחמת לבנון לנצח בבחירות זה כמו לתת לקפטן של הטיטאניק את המפתחות לעוד ספינה להשיט עם אלפי אנשים.
@Investigate0710 @bringhomenow @hagitchen pic.twitter.com/BLFCbDHueW— Ruby Chen (@EmailRubychen) August 8, 2026
He accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers of fear-mongering against the opposition “in the hope we stop asking them what they actually did in the worst term a government has ever had here.”
“We’ll need to ask them time and again, where were you on October 7?” he says. “What did you do that caused a quarter of a million Israelis to leave Israel?”
A state commission of inquiry “does not belong to this or that political camp” but is rather “the basis for our being able to live here with the knowledge that the lessons are being learned and the next disaster is being averted,” he says.
Ruby Chen also calls on the state to “recognize the new reality that October 7 created,” of families like his own that suffered “psychological terrorism” waiting for the return of their slain loved ones’ abducted bodies.
Such families’ needs are “not being addressed by the State of Israel,” he says, as the crowd jeers.
The Times of Israel Community.