Report: Netanyahu looking to ban establishment of state committee of inquiry into Oct. 7

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to promote legislation that will ban the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught, Channel 13 reports.

According to the report, the legislation will instead allow for the establishment of a political commission of inquiry, which would be chaired by one coalition lawmaker and one opposition lawmaker. Senior security officials would also serve on the panel, the report states.

Netanyahu has repeatedly put off the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, which is the body that enjoys the broadest powers until Israeli law, to investigate the government’s failures that enabled the deadly Hamas attacks, claiming that all investigations must wait until the fighting in Gaza ends.

Earlier this month, however, the Israel Hayom daily reported that the premier was mulling the establishment of an alternate “special committee” to probe the matter.

Responding to the Channel 13 report on X, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid warns that a political commission of inquiry “cannot and will not happen.”

“We will only vote in favor of a state commission of inquiry,” he adds.

MK Merav Ben Ari, of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, similarly voices opposition to the reported plan, and vows that the opposition “will not cooperate” with Netanyahu’s attempt to “escape his responsibility for the October 7 massacres.”

“We will use every parliamentary right we have to torpedo the laws,” she promises.