Protesters call for Oct. 7 state commission outside ministers’ homes: ‘You cannot bury the truth’

Small groups of activists calling for a state commission of inquiry into October 7 are protesting outside the homes of a number of senior Likud officials.

Protests are held outside the homes of Education Minister Yoav Kisch in Hod Hasharon, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana in Tel Aviv, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Ness Ziona, Justice Minister Yariv Levin in Modiin, and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli in Kibbutz Hanaton.

The activists hold signs with slogans such as “We have buried enough — you cannot bury the truth.”

The demonstrations come after a parliamentary committee gave coalition backing to a contentious bill that would create a new type of commission of inquiry, whose members would be picked by the Knesset, instead of the Supreme Court president, as mandated under the current law for state commissions of inquiry.

The legislation for the politically appointed probe is expected to come to the Knesset plenum for a preliminary reading today.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that the public would not trust a state commission because its members would be chosen by the judiciary, which his government has sought to weaken through a series of controversial laws. As recently as 2022, Netanyahu had backed a state commission of inquiry into the conduct of the previous government.

Despite Netanyahu’s claims, opinion polls consistently show that a state commission of inquiry is backed by a majority of the public.