Families of fallen soldiers demand answers after Gaza report

Families of soldiers who were killed during the 2014 Gaza war reacted angrily to the findings of the state comptroller’s reports on the conflict published Tuesday, calling on the government to take responsibility for their sons’ deaths.

The reports found significant gaps in the military’s intelligence in the lead-up to the war, as well as a lack of clearly defined operational plans for how to destroy Hamas’s network of tunnels. Those failings may have led, the report said, to the unnecessary deaths of Israeli soldiers during the 50-day conflict.

But the Prime Minister’s Office bore the brunt of State Comptroller Yosef Shapira’s criticism, for its failure to sufficiently brief members of the security cabinet about the subterranean threat.

In a letter, read out to Israel’s parliament by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, the relatives urged lawmakers to “fully adopt the reports’ conclusions” in order to ensure that the next “threat does not turn into another war.”

As “it was you who sent our sons to war, the moral responsibility to apply the lessons learned falls upon you,” the letter said.

The letter noted the reports’ description of “the tremendous failures in the conduct of the security cabinet, the National Security Council and the Shin Bet” in preparing for the tunnel threat. The families accused those agencies and panels of “not taking responsibility” for the shortcomings in preparedness ahead of the conflict.

The families also wrote that “we deserve answers” and “we deserve leadership that takes responsibility.”

In addition to the letter, a number of families issued separate statements in which they voiced anger over the state comptroller’s conclusions.

The family of Oron Shaul, who the army determined was killed in action during the war, and whose body is being held by the Gaza’s Hamas rulers, said the report “confirms our cries that sometimes sounded absurd and not realistic,” the Hebrew-language Walla news site reported.

“The prime minister of Israel and the former defense minister abandoned [the soldiers], concealed, and covered up. That’s how the war in Gaza, which lasted for more than 50 days, was managed and that’s how it was with the declaration — so rash and so contrary to Jewish law — that Oron was killed in action.

“Once again, we ask the prime minister: Do not abandon Sgt. Oron Shaul, a Golani [brigade] fighter, who is in the hands of Hamas,” the family said.

Ilan Sagi, the father of Erez Sagi, who was killed in action in a cross-border attack launched through one of the Hamas tunnels, told Channel 2 News in an emotional interview that the government conduct was “shameful.”

“I don’t need to read the report, I paid the heaviest price on the subject of this report. It’s shameful, shameful. The blood of my son cries out from the earth and the politicians party,” Sagi said. “They behave in an insulting manner. Each of them tries to evade responsibility. My son died for our country, for our people, and those who failed should pay the price.”

“People of Israel, wake up, open your eyes, and don’t say, ‘It won’t happen to me,'” Sagi continued. “We cannot accept this silently. There must be a state commission of inquiry and those found guilty must be punished. This is blood that was shed, not water. People of Israel, get up, shout! The government played with the blood of our soldiers!”

While the reports were only released to the public on Tuesday, most of the critiques they contain have been reported on widely for months, as versions of the scalding documents circulated among relevant politicians and defense officials — and were leaked by them — as early as May 2016.

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.