Anti-government protesters pan bill for political Oct. 7 inquiry, said set for vote this week

Relative of slain hostage rails against Netanyahu’s ‘populist, fascist’ bid to avoid forming state probe; report says Knesset likely to hold first reading vote in coming days

Anti-government protesters held weekly protests Saturday evening in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, with the relative of a hostage kidnapped to Gaza on October 7, 2023, and later murdered in captivity, slamming the coalition’s legislation to form a politically appointed commission of inquiry into the failures that enabled the Hamas onslaught rather than a state commission.

The bill is expected to come up this week for its first of three Knesset plenum votes, a report said Saturday.

A state committee, Israel’s highest investigative authority and the one surveys have consistently shown is preferred by the public to probe October 7, comprises independent experts appointed by the chief justice.

According to the draft law, the coalition and opposition would each appoint three members of the six-member commission. But even if the opposition refuses to appoint members for the panel, as it says it will, the commission could still operate with just the coalition-appointed members, according to the legislation.

At a 500-strong anti-government protest in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, Ayala Metzger, daughter-in-law of 80-year-old Yoram, railed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to call for a state commission, saying that “as time passes, the questions just pile up.”

“The political, populist, fascist committee of inquiry… would comprise three coalition representatives and three opposition representatives,” Metzger said. “If the opposition members happen to refuse to take part in this perverse conduct, the three coalition members will act as the committee and probe the crimes they themselves are responsible for.”

In Jerusalem, five people were arrested, and police deployed mounted officers to disperse a protest at Paris Square, close to the Prime Minister’s Residence. Participants said their loudspeaker equipment was confiscated. The five detainees were later released.

Police said in a statement that the gathering was disturbing public order and that “the protesters held an unauthorized procession, blocked roads, and used loudspeaker equipment at high volume before Shabbat had ended.”

According to Haaretz, seizure of the equipment interrupted a speech given by former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, who served in a previous Netanyahu government but who has since become harshly critical of the prime minister.

Also on Saturday evening, Channel 12 reported that the bill is likely to be brought for its first reading in the Knesset this week.

The bill passed a preliminary hearing in December but has been fiercely criticized by the opposition, which has vowed to boycott any commission set up under the terms of the legislation.

The opposition has demanded a state commission of inquiry, which is entirely independent of the government once it is created, but requires a cabinet decision to be established. The government has strongly resisted a state commission, however.

Netanyahu and other cabinet ministers have claimed in public that a commission appointed by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit would not have the trust of the general public. The government has not, however, made this argument during hearings over petitions in the High Court of Justice demanding a state commission, arguing simply that only the government has the authority to establish a state commission.

‘The fire in me burns hotter than the flames of hell’

Another speaker at Saturday’s anti-government protest was Eran Littman, whose daughter Oriya was killed in the Hamas massacre at the Nova music festival, and who said the 26-year-old was “murdered because of a war of religion.”

“Hamas’s Muslim fanatics murdered her,” while letters left behind from slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar show “the damage that Jewish fanatics did to Muslim holy places triggered the unending war,” Littman claimed.

He expressed derision toward the Haredi effort to pass a quasi-constitutional Basic Law equating the privileges of draft-evading yeshiva students to those of Israelis who perform mandatory military service.

“Don’t you dare tell me learning Torah protects us,” he said. “Anyone who dares say that next to me, I’ll take them six feet under so they can say that to my Oriya.”

“The fire in me burns hotter than the flames of hell,” he added.

He noted ahead of these comments that his daughter’s body had been retrieved by four Haredi volunteers with the ZAKA service who are “no less heroic than any commando.” Littman’s tirade was aimed at the government, not the volunteers, whom he has since befriended, he said.

As he spoke, police entered the crowd to break up a shouting match between pro-government activist Hadar Muchtar, who tried to get footage from the protest, and a would-be anti-government influencer who tried to shout her down.

Both were escorted aside, and police took their respective versions before letting them go.

Before the rally, some protesters had marched from nearby Rabin Square, holding signs with varying anti-government messages, including anti-war and anti-occupation slogans, campaign messages for opposition parties and calls for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into October 7.

“The members of the massacre government have their backs against the wall today,” anti-government protest leader Shikma Bressler said in a speech before the main rally. “They see the polls, and they know what their part is in the great disaster that happened to us and in the great deterioration of the status of the State of Israel.”

Several other demonstrations were held at other locations across the country, including Haifa, Jerusalem, Beersheba and Afula.