State comptroller to probe October 7 security failings, but only after war

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman says Israeli citizens were abandoned in the face of Hamas’s savage October 7 assault on Israel, and that “the great failure” of that day will be eventually reviewed by his office, leveling harsh criticism over the breakdown of Israel’s defenses.

“On October 7, the borders of the State of Israel were breached, and cursed Hamas terrorists did whatever they liked in towns of this country. Thousands of Israeli citizens were slaughtered, raped and kidnapped, and were left to their fate on Simchat Torah,” Englman tells the Knesset Finance Committee.

The state comptroller points to a report his office released yesterday about the government’s failure to address civilians needs on the home front, saying, “The failures that were exposed in the security response on the day of the massacre continued in a series of deficiencies in the civilian response to the hundreds of thousands of evacuees [resulting from] the outbreak of war.”

Englman says his review of the functioning of the security services surrounding the events of October 7 will begin when developments in the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza allow it, stating it would be impossible to conduct this probe with the IDF carrying out intense military operations.

“It is already clear, though, that the government of Israel and the security forces must conduct a thorough internal inspection as to how the great failure on October 7 happened,” says the comptroller.