Netanyahu weighing various commissions of inquiry to stave off legal action at ICC
PM’s office notes AG told him she believes government should back a state commission, which he has repeatedly refused to do, saying ‘there’s no certainty’ it would prevent warrants
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with judicial officials Thursday to discuss whether to set up a commission of inquiry into the October 7 attacks and the Gaza war, as part of efforts to fend off looming arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told Netanyahu she believes a state commission of inquiry should be established, said the Prime Minister’s Office. According to Channel 12, Ynet and other news outlets, other legal experts agreed, believing a state commission is Israel’s best hope of avoiding arrest warrants for Netanyahu and others, as it would show the Israeli justice system was seriously investigating all aspects of the conflict.
Netanyahu reportedly expressed his preference for the establishment of a lower-level governmental commission of inquiry or some other type of panel that would not be a state commission, the most independent type of panel capable of probing government conduct.
According to Netanyahu’s office, “even in [Baharav-Miara’s] opinion, there is no certainty that forming such a commission will lead to the cancellation of the request to issue the warrants.”
“Therefore, several additional options were discussed in the meeting,” the statement said.
Opponents of the government and others in Israel have argued that only a state commission, which enjoys the broadest powers under the law, is the appropriate forum by which to exhaustively investigate all aspects of the worst single attack in the country’s history.
A governmental commission of inquiry is comprised of members chosen by the executive branch and typically has less investigative powers than a state commission, whose members are appointed by the Supreme Court chief justice.
The prime minister has so far refused to initiate a state commission of inquiry into the series of failures before and during October 7 — when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war — despite frequent calls to do so, including by some coalition members.
Thursday’s deliberations ended without an immediate decision, though Ynet reported that Netanyahu may announce a government commission of inquiry in the coming days, citing unnamed associates of the premier. Netanyahu’s office in response claimed the report was “fake news” and that no decision had been made.
Last week, dozens of countries, academics and rights groups filed legal arguments either rejecting or supporting the ICC’s power to issue arrest warrants in its investigation into the war between Israel and Hamas.
The warrants sought by the court’s chief prosecutor Kharim Khan are on charges that Israel has targeted civilians in Gaza and used starvation as a method of war.
Israel strongly rejects the accusations, pointing to the relatively low civilian-to-combatant ratio among the casualties in Gaza, the terror group’s use of civilians as human shields, and highlighting its efforts to expand humanitarian aid into the enclave, despite regular looting by gangs and terror groups.
Khan also sought to issue arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Muhammad Deif, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, alleging crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage-taking and torture, both during the war and in the October 7 onslaught that started the war, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Deif, then the commander of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip last month, according to Israel. Haniyeh, then the group’s political leader, was assassinated in Tehran last week, in a blast for which Israel has not claimed responsibility.
Sinwar, an architect of the October 7 attack, has since been named as Haniyeh’s successor.
